No sadder proof can be given by man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore, we must learn both arts.

The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self-activity.

That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

Enjoy things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.