Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some ….

The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object of life. It should be a moral one; to teach self-trust: to inspire the youthful ….

We read often with as much talent as we write..

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be..

Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we are not allowed to be nice in choosing. We must fetch the pump with dirty water, if clean cannot be had..

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the way of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby….

Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creepinto a corner, and a….

When a man becomes a conformist, he is sacrificing the richness of independent thinking..

There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits theevidences of large p….

The true poem is the poet's mind..

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow..

The action of the soul is oftener in that which is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any conversation. It broods over every society,….

The world exists, as I understand it, to teach the science of liberty..

A few years ago, the liberal churches complained that the Calvinistic church denied to them the name of Christian. I think the complaint was confessi….

It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of c….

The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may en….

The height, the deity of man is to be self-sustained, to need no gift, no foreign force. Society is good when it does not violate me, but best when i….

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected..

A man cannot free himself by any self-denying ordinances, neither by water nor potatoes, nor by violent possibilities, by refusing to swear, refusing….

A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love o….

The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down; aspires and not despairs..