The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly, I think any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.

How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls!

Man needs to know but little more than a lobster in order to catch him in his traps.

It is not every man who can be a Christian, even in a very moderate sense, whatever education you give him. It is a matter of constitution and temperament, after all. He may have to be born again many times. I have known many a man who pretended to be a Christian, in whom it was ridiculous, for he had no genius for it. It is not every man who can be a free man, even.

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, andflatter and study effect only more finely than the rest.