Self Quotes — page 81

Above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.

The flatterer easily insinuates himself into the closet, while honest merit stands shivering in the hall or antechamber.

Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.

It is a good lesson — though it may often be a hard one — for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims …

The fact that altruism has been evolved by the cooperation of individuals with each other and against others is a significant fact in the analysis and understanding of the ethical phenomena of the earth. To this fact is due the restricted …

In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or …

The reformer for whom the world is not good enough finds himself shoulder to shoulder with him that is not good enough for the world.

I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government.

The great question is, to discover not what governments prescribe, but what they ought to prescribe; for no prescription is valid against the conscience of mankind.

I thought Mr. Millward never would cease telling us that he was no tea-drinker, and that it was highly injurious to keep loading the stomach with slops to the exclusion of more wholesome sustenance, and so give himself time to finish his …

The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest …

The history of nations is a melancholy chapter, that is, the history of their Governments. I am sorrowfully of opinion that, though virtue of splendid quality dwells in high regions with individuals, it is chiefly to be found on a large …

It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to undervalue them.

The law of habit exhibits a striking contrast to all physical laws in the character of its commands.

I do not fear the arrival of as many immigrants a year as shipping conditions or passport requirements can handle, provided they are of good character.

Machiavel says virtue and riches seldom settle on one man.

The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one.

these concepts are deeply ingrained in our national character.

Everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.

Its character is the skillful commingling of customs useful to society, customs which have no need of law to insure respect, with other customs useful only to rulers, injurious to the mass of the people, and maintained only by the fear of …

Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.

The Book had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the best effect of any book.