A man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?
Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked
Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.
The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul.
A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it time runs out.
Beware how you take away hope from another human being
Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live. I am coming.
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.
The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.
When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman?
Man has his will, but woman has her way.
Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Speak clearly if you speak at all, carve every word before you let it fall.
For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.
Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face.
To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.
Science is the topography of ignorance.
Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!
The great thing in this world, is not so much where we are, but in which direction we are moving.
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of an eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
Why can’t somebody give us a list of things everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of the things that everybody says but nobody thinks?
Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.
It is a good plan to have a book with you in all places and at all times. If you are presently without, hurry without delay to the nearest shop and buy one of mine.
A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.
Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.
Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life.
Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable
I hate paying taxes. But I love the civilization they give me
Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.
Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good
Have faith and pursue the unknown end.
Yet in opinions look not always back,-- Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track; Leave what you've done for what you have to do; Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.
Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear.
Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have - Cincinnati sounds worse.
Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our notes Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats; He keeps all his customers still in arrears By lending them minutes and charging them years.
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.
Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children.
Life transforming ideas have always come to me through books.
The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men--from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
There's nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but a tree and truth.
Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.
My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out.
Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.
Every library should try to complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.
