It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience. But a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and t...
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.
Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
That government is best which governs least.
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.
What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?
To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exlcude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.
This world is but canvas to our imaginations.
There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of 'expediency.' There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals, the only sliders are backsliders.
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
There is in my nature, methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness.
The moose will perhaps one day become extinct; but how naturally then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen as that, may the poet or sculptor invent a fabulous animal with similar branchi...