Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is what it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in.

The worst feature of this double consciousness is, that the two lives, of the understanding and of the soul, which we lead, reallyshow very little relation to each other; never meet and measure each other: one prevails now, all buzz and din; and the other prevails then, all infinitude and paradise; and, with the progress of life, the two discover no greater disposition to reconcile themselves.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so.

The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.

People only see what they are prepared to see. If you look for what is good and what you can be grateful for you will find it everywhere.