He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.

The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.

A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature.

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.

Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.

This body, full of faults, Has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions.

A man cannot free himself by any self-denying ordinances, neither by water nor potatoes, nor by violent possibilities, by refusing to swear, refusing to pay taxes, by going to jail, or by taking another man's crops or squatting on his land. By none of these ways can he free himself; no, nor by paying his debts with money; only by obedience to his own genius.