We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.

Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.

Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night.

Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.

The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.