All work of man is as the swimmer's: a vast ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it will keep its word.

A judicious man uses statistics, not to get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted upon him.

Man is a tool-using animal.

Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man

Trust not the heart of that man for whom old clothes are not venerable.

The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal; work it out therefrom, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself.

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.

Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.

Friend, hast thou considered the "rugged, all-nourishing earth," as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds the sparrow on the housetop, much more her darling man?