Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfillments; each of its joys ripens into a new want.

Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.

...most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right.

When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; ... he learns his ignorance, is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.

He only is rich who owns the day.

A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.

What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us, but makes us intellectual beings.