“The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.”

“We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If you say that this is absurd, and that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people's lives; and that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big.”

“There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.”

“The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex a being for any one of them to have the casting vote. If any one of them do have the casting vote, it is more likely to be the strength of his desire and passion, the strength of the interest he takes in what is proposed. Concentration, memory, reasoning power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses, all are subsidiary to this.”

“I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ.”

“Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.”

“If I gaze at my beloved she may feel embarrassed and if I do not, she will feel neglected. I can see the stars reflecting in the calm water of her face but if I look away I lose my clarity.”

“Not everyone coming to you with a problem wants a solution. They are attached to the attention it brings them.”

“Benvolio- "By my head, here come the Capulets." Mercutio- "By my heel, I care not.”

“Some report a sea-maid spawn'd him; some that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice.”

“Free from gross passion or of mirth of anger constant spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.”

“You taught me language, and my profit on't / Is, I know how to curse”

“Those that do teach young babesDo it with gentle means and easy tasks.”

“Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and out American colleges will recede in their public importance whilst they grow richer every year.”

“If a man fasten his attention on a single aspect of truth and apply himself to that alone for a long time, the truth becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood.”

“The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force.”

“The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work.”

“I that please some, try all, both joy and terrorOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error.”

“Weed your better judgments of all opinion that grows rank in them.”

“All hoods make not monks.”

“How could you reach the pearl by only looking at the sea? If you seek the pearl, be a diver: the diver needs several qualities: he must trust his rope and his life to the Friend's hand, he must stop breathing, and he must jump.”

“You must manage yourself before you can lead someone else.”

“If you will be hard on yourself, life will be easy on you. But if you insist upon being easy on yourself, life is going to be very hard on you.”

“My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment.”

“The let-alone lies not in your good will.”

“I'll forbear; And am fallen out with my more headier will To take the indisposed and sickly fit For the sound man.”