The quote database

The soul should take care of the body, just as a pilgrim on his way to Mecca takes care of his camel.

The happy and the powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.

In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.

His capacity for work was prodigious, and when his own work happened to take less than his full time he characteristically found activity in serving a scientist or exercising an animal.

The secret of calm cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can be consistently cheerful and calm who does not consistently think kind thoughts.

In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect.

Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.

The present alone is true and actual; it is the only time which possesses full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively.

There is a direct pleasure in seeing work grow under one's hands day by day, until at last it is finished.

The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

In old age it is indeed a consolation to think that the work of life is over and done with.

I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.

The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not, as we feel in a thousand instances.

At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.

Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.

There is an indescribable something about work with the hands that tends to develop a student's mind.

There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights.

Sitting down on a block of granite, it was delightful to watch the various insects and birds as they flew past.

This west coast makes me remember with pleasure the free, unbounded plains of Patagonia; yet, with the true spirit of contradiction, I cannot forget how sublime is the silence of the forest.

Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest.

Competence to age is supplementary youth; a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had.

From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into a vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I wanted some steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me.