Right thinking, like right doing, is the result of innumerable efforts, innumerable failures, the final outcome of which is a habit of right thought and conduct.
Whoever believes in truth, freedom, and love, and follows after them with his whole heart, walks in God's highway, which leads to peace and blessedness.
A thing may be obscure from defect of light or defect of sight; and in the same way an author may be found dull either because he is so, or because his readers are dull. The noblest book even is but dead matter until a mind akin to its creator's awakens it to life again.
The appeal to the imagination has infinitely more charm than the appeal to the senses.
"But when evening falls," says Machiavelli, "I go home and enter my study. On the threshold I lay aside my country garments, soiled with mire, and array myself in courtly garb. Thus attired, I make my entrance into the ancient courts of the men of old, where they receive me with love, and where I feed upon that food which only is my own, and for which I was born. For four hours' space I feel no annoyance, forget all care; poverty cannot frighten nor death appall me." A man of genius works for all, for he compels all to think. An enlightened mind and a generous heart make the world good and fair.
Where there is perfect confidence, conversation does not drag; while for those who love it is enough that they be together: if they are silent, it is well; if they speak, mere nothings suffice.
The world of knowledge, all that men know, is, in truth, little and simple enough. It seems vast and intricate because we are imperfectly educated.
The soul, like the body, has its atmosphere, out of which it cannot live.
When opinions take the place of convictions, ideas that of beliefs, great characters become rare.
The pith of virtue lies not in thinking, but in doing. A real man strives to assert himself; for whether he seeks wealth, or power, or fame, or truth, or virtue, or the good of his fellows, he knows that he can succeed only through self-assertion, through the prevalence of his own thought and life.