To persuade is more trouble than to dominate, and the powerful seldom take this trouble if they can avoid it.

We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind.

A person of mature years and ripe development, who is expecting nothing from literature but the corroboration and renewal of past ideas, may find satisfaction in a lucidity so complete as to occasion no imaginative excitement, but young and ambitious students are not content with it. They seek the excitement because they are capable of the growth that it accompanies.

When one ceases from conflict, whether because he has won, because he has lost, or because he cares no more for the game, the virtue passes out of him.

Form the habit of making decisions when your spirit is fresh...to let dark moods lead is like choosing cowards to command armies.

If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.

Freedom is the opportunity for right development, for development in accordance with the progressive ideal of life that we have in conscience.