“What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.”

“Do not engage to find things as you think they are.”

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”

“If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.”

“What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can old man, — you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind,– I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that.”

“In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world. ”

“Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!”