Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning—an endeavor to navigate a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have to run, but without observation of the heavenly bodies.
Most people keep too strong a hold of their personality to be able to forget themselves in their subject; they carry an unacknowledged self-consciousness along with them. If to be single-minded is to have an undivided interest in things, they are not single-minded.
Real affection is independent. A woman may passionately love a man who does not care for her, and men have gone mad for the sake of women who were indifferent to them. That affection which survives coldness or even contempt on the part of the subject is a stronger proof of its strength than jealousy, however well founded.
To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals, and to have a deference for others governs our manners.
If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people pay you, and what people think of you.
One great impediment to the rapid dissemination of new truths is that a knowledge of them would convict many sage professors of having long promulgated error.
The leaves that give out the sweetest fragrance are those that are the most cruelly crushed; so the hearts of those who have suffered most can feel for others' woes.
Each of us can so believe in humanity in general as to contribute to that pressure which constantly levers up the race; can surround ourselves with an atmosphere optimistic rather than the contrary.—Selected.
He who has more knowledge than good works is like a tree with many branches and few roots, which the first wind throws on its face; while he who does more than he says is like a tree with strong roots and few branches, which all the winds can not uproot.—Talmud.
If we waited until it was perfectly convenient, half of the good actions of life would never be accomplished, and very few of its successes.