Quotes
Quotes about Men
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
As freely as the firmament embraces the world,
To feed men and not to love them is to treat them as if they were barnyard cattle. To love them and not respect them is to treat them as if they were household pets.
After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
Man's life does not commence in the womb and never ends in the grave.
Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of the billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things within that enormous immensity.
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
Conversation, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions--the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.
I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
