We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties.

We set up a certain aim, and put ourselves of our own will into the power of a certain current. Once having done that, we find ourselves committed to usages and customs which we had not before fully known, but from which we cannot depart without giving up the end which we have chosen. But we have no right, therefore, to claim that we are under the yoke of necessity. We might as well say that the man whom we see struggling vainly in the current of Niagara could not have helped jumping in.

We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties.

History in the making is a very uncertain thing. It might be better to wait till the South American republic has got through withits twenty-fifth revolution before reading much about it. When it is over, some one whose business it is, will be sure to give you in a digested form all that it concerns you to know, and save you trouble, confusion, and time. If you will follow this plan, you will be surprised to find how new and fresh your interest in what you read will become.

What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.

The more we reduce ourselves to machines in the lower things, the more force we shall set free to use in the higher.

We are always getting ready to live, and never having time enough to live.