Prudence and compromise are necessary means, but every man should have an impudent end which he will not compromise.

By recognizing a favorable opinion of yourself, and taking pleasure in it, you in a measure give yourself and your peace of mind into the keeping of another, of whose attitude you can never be certain. You have a new source of doubt and apprehension.

We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.

There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to "Americanize" him.

The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.

As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it.