Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.
The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.
He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little from without.
Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.
For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.
Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.
Before you can do something you must first be something.
How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then you shall know what is in thee.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
The deed is everything, the glory is naught.
Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
When all is said the greatest action is to limit and isolate one's self.
The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.
The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.
Rejoice that you have still have a long time to live, before the thought comes to you that there is nothing more in the world to see.
It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.
All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.
The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.
Personality is everything in art and poetry.
One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together.
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.
Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.
Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.
Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image
He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.
Oh how sweet it is to hear one's own convictions from another's lips.
We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.
Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.
The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
What I possess I would gladly retain. Change amuses the mind, yet scarcely profits.
Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.
Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
Character develops itself in the stream of life.
The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.
If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.
The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.
Master and Doctor are my titles; for ten years now, without repose, I held my erudite recitals and led my pupils by the nose.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.
Common sense is the genius of humanity.
No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
No wise combatant underestimates their antagonist.
I will not be as those who spend the day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it.
You accuse a woman of wavering affections, but don't blame her; she is just looking for a consistent man.
Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.
Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.
Wealth lost is something lost, honor lost is something lost: Courage lost all is lost.
Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
The coward threatens when he is safe.
A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
To create something you must be something.
There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable.
The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.
Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic!
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.
A useless life is an early death.
Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.
Ambition and love are the wings to great deeds.
Deny yourself! You must deny yourself! That is the song that never ends.
While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.
The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five.
Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
I know nothing more mocking than a devil that despairs.
It is only in misery that we recognize the hand of God leading good men to good.
Doubt can only be removed by action.
I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.
Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.
Love can do much, but duty more.
People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.
They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.
He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.
Mastery passes often for egotism.
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
No prudent antagonist thinks light of his adversaries.
He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.
Enjoy what thou has inherited from thy sires if thou wouldn't really possess it. What we employ and use is never an oppressive burden; what the moment brings forth, that only can it profit by.
Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.
Every situation, every moment -- is of infinite worth; for it is the representative of a whole eternity.
Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.
If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.
More light!
Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.
Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.
It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.
Look closely at those who patronize you. Half are unfeeling, half untaught.
Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.
Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.
It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. They will make note of this and not remain in your debt long.
Only learn to seize good fortune, for good fortune's always here.
Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it
Only law can give us freedom.
Yes! To this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew.
In comradeship is danger countered best.
Giving is the business of the rich.
The first and last thing required of genius is, love of the truth.
The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
A distracted existence leads us to no goal.
What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.
Their is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.
One never goes further than when they do not know where they are going.
Difficulties increase the nearer we approach the goal.
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.
The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.
The man who is born with a talent which he was meant to use finds his greatest happiness in using it.
What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.
The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.
Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.
Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.
Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.
Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.
Those are dead even for this life who hope for no other.
It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.
The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.
The history of mankind is his character.
He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
Be he a king or a peasant, he is happiest who finds peace at home.
Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?
Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.
One that does not think to highly of himself is more than he thinks.
Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.
There is nothing more frightful than imagination without taste.
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
Clever people are always the best conversations lexicon.
Every offense is avenged on earth.
A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.
Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt.
What is not fully understood is not possessed.
Never by reflection, but only by doing is self-knowledge possible to one.
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.
Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.
Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
I've studied now Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine -- and even, alas! Theology -- from end to end with labor keen; and here, poor fool with all my lore I stand, no wiser than before.
In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.
Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.
No one as ever completed their apprenticeship.
Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.
There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.
What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
There are nine requisites for contented living: HEALTH enough to make work a pleasure; WEALTH enough to support your needs; STRENGTH enough to battle with difficulties and forsake them; GRACE enough to confess your sins and overcome them; PATIENCE enough to toil until some good is accomplished; CHARITY enough to see some good in your neighbor; LOVE enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others; FAITH enough to make real the things of God; HOPE enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
Life is the childhood of our immortality.
A person hears only what they understand.
People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.
The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.
If I love you, what business is it of yours?
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.
That is the true season of love; when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved as much before, and that no one will ever love in the same way again.
If each one does their duty as an individual and if each one works in their own proper vocation, it will be right with the whole.
When a wife has a good husband it is easily seen in her face.
We are the slaves of objects around us, and appear little or important according as these contract or give us room to expand.
The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.
The little man is still a man.
Girls we love for what they are; men for what they promise to be.
The human mind will not be confined to any limits.
We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.
A clever man commits no minor blunders.
The best fortune that can fall to a man is that which corrects his defects and makes up for his failings.
Out of moderation a pure happiness springs.
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything.
It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.
Who is sure of their own motives can in confidence advance or retreat.
The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.
The unnatural, that too is natural.
Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.
In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
Nature goes her own way and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.
To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.
No two men see the world exactly alike, and different temperaments will apply in different ways a principle that they both acknowledge. The same man will, indeed, often see and judge the same things differently on different occasions: early convictions must give way to more mature ones. Nevertheless, may not the opinions that a man holds and expresses withstand all trials, if he only remains true to himself and others?
The right man is the one that seizes the moment.
The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
Our passion are the true phoenixes; when the old one is burnt out, a new one rises from its ashes.
Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.
There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.
The little that is completed, vanishes from the sight of one who looks forward to what is still to do.
If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.
We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.
Austere perseverance, hash and continuous... rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistible greater with time.
Oral delivery aims at persuasion and making the listener believe they are converted. Few persons are capable of being convinced; the majority allow themselves to be persuaded.
People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.
To make converts is the natural ambition of everyone.
Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.
The philosopher must station themselves in the middle.
Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.
In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from side to side, thinking they will be more comfortable.
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
Napoleon for the sake of a good name broke in pieces half the world.
Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.
If you treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.
He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.
What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.
Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.
Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach
If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.
Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.
Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.
A collections of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions.
Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.
What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.
A purpose you impart is no longer your own.
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.
Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.
To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.
If you want a wise answer, ask a reasonable question.
Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.
Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.
Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.
People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.
By seeking and blundering we learn.
A person can stand almost anything except a succession of ordinary days.
People may live as much retired from the world as they like, but sooner or later they find themselves debtor or creditor to some one.
A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.
We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to.
A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher.
Whether a person shows themselves to be a genius in science or in writing a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, or the deed, is living and can live on.
The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.
Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.
Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.
No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.
Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.
Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.
Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.
Self-love exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues.
Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them.
The senses do not deceive us, but the judgment does.
Nothing is true, but that which is simple.
There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.
To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.
It is delivery that makes the orators success.
I do not speak of what I cannot praise.
I don't know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.
The people rate strength before everything.
Stupidity is without anxiety.
On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long.
Superstition is the poetry of life.
Seldom in the business and transactions of ordinary life, do we find the sympathy we want.
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.
Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.
Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.
We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.
One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
Traveling is like gambling: it is always connected with winning and losing, and generally where it is least expected we receive, more or less than what we hoped for.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.
Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.
To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed -- That can make life a garden.
The man of understanding finds everything laughable.
So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!
Some of our weakness is born in us, some of it comes through education; it is a big question as to which gives us the most trouble.
No one should be rich except those who understand it.
The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.
Those that are firm in their will mold the world to themselves.
He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.
Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
Wisdom is found only in truth.
We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.
The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on!
Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.
Every spoken word arouses our self-will.
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
The world remains ever the same.
If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
Every author in some degree portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.
He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.
Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.