The quote database

The world is advanced only by those who more than fill their present places.

Every thought we think makes it necessary for us to think another thought; consciousness is continually expanding.

The object of all life is development; and everything that lives has an inalienable right to all the development it is capable of attaining.

There is no instant step from disorder to order.

Our supreme task is the resumption of our onward, normal way.

If you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first.

Even in the same family the gap is not so great; the wound closes up sooner than we should expect.

Old companions are like meats served up too often, that lose their relish and their wholesomeness.

Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life.

We are all to some degree oppressed, unfree. We don't come to our own. It is there, but we don't get at it. The threshold must be made to shift.

A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.

It is notorious that a single successful effort of moral volition, such as saying 'no' to some habitual temptation, or performing some courageous act, will launch a man on a higher level of energy for days and weeks, will give him a new range of power.

The transformation, moreover, is a chronic one: the new level of energy becomes permanent.

Excitements, ideas, and efforts, in a word, are what carry us over the dam.

Accordingly a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute.

Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it.

The pure men of old slept without dreams, and waked without anxiety.