The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

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.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.

That government is best which governs least.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.