The quote database

All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for

Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote,--justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.

To accomplish anything excellent, the will must work for catholic and universal ends.

The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time.

I know that peace does not come through wishing for it--that there is no substitute for days and even years of patient and prolonged diplomacy.

Until he has been part of a cause larger than himself, no man is truly whole.

The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.

Let us measure what we will do for others by what they will do for themselves.

Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.

These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it.

The length of man's life, which is endless to the brave and busy, is scorned by his ambitious thought.

To believe in immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life.

Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun.

To ask to see some fruit of our endeavour is but a transcendental way of serving for reward; and what we take to be contempt of self is only greed of hire.

Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties.

the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing

All life that is not merely mechanical is spun out of two strands: seeking for that bird and hearing him.

It may consist with perpetual failure, and find exercise in the continued chase.

he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.

The time of such a man is always spent in forming schemes, which a change of wind hinders him from executing, his powers fume away in projects and in hope, and the day of action never arrives.

Such biographies increase a man's self-reliance by demonstrating what men can be, and what they can do; fortifying his hopes and elevating his aims in life.

Work educates the body, as study educates the mind; and that is the best state of society in which there is some work for every man's leisure, and some leisure for every man's work.