“Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs
“Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach
“Happily in this community we all are bred and born to work; and this honorable mark, set on us all, should bind together the various portions of the community
“Courage considered in itself or without reference to its causes, is no virtue, and deserves no esteem
“Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life
“Man's spiritual nature is no dream of theologians to vanish before the light of natural science. It is the grandest reality on earth
“Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable
“The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected
“Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism
“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.
“All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die