All quotes

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived

if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours

There is no short road to the realization of these aspirations.

It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.

To grow in self-control, in patience, in equanimity, is to grow in strength and power; and you can only thus grow by focusing your consciousness upon a principle.

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it.

National honor is national property of the highest value.

Huxley declares that the sense of uselessness is the severest shock which the human system can sustain, and that if persistently sustained, it results in atrophy of function.

Our young people feel nervously the need of putting theory into action, and respond quickly to the Settlement form of activity.

She is besotted with innocent little ambitions, and does not understand this apparent waste of herself, this elaborate preparation, if no work is provided for her.

Young people themselves often resent this attitude on the part of their elders; they feel set aside and belittled as if they were denied the common human experiences.

I will give my all in your service thinking not of power, but of possibilities.

We will lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country

The mountains are calling and I must go, and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.

Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned you, that the happiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank in earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.

The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means?

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end.

One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way

There was a Care on my Mind so to pass my Time, that nothing might hinder me from the most steady Attention to the Voice of the true Shepherd.

I don’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.