Quotes

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth." Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Man is a born child, his power is the power of growth.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet;

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words that are clear; the great truth has great silence.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.