The quote database

If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.

There were times when his optimism appeared forced and formal though I believe it was not really so: there were times when I have almost hated him for his infernal cheerfulness.

Furthermore, Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities, and legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than Justice even.

The secret of calm cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can be consistently cheerful and calm who does not consistently think kind thoughts.

The prime reason for social intercourse is mutual need; and as soon as that is satisfied, boredom drives people together once more.

the need of society drives the human porcupines together--only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature

There is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women

There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights.

The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together.

My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you.

Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall hardly know me.

Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,--I stood ramparted about with so many healthy friends.

The partners, and the clerks, with whom I had for so many years, and for so many hours in each day of the year, been closely associated--being suddenly removed from them--they seemed as dead to me.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.

The brain of man is the social organ, the organ of communication. Through it flows the current of thought, whereby we are enabled to work together.

If I associate not with these people,-- with mankind,-- with whom shall I associate?

If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.

It is not kind in you to desire an increase of my friendship; that is to doubt it is not as great already as it can be, than which you cannot do me a greater injury.

All letters, methinks, should be free and easy as one's discourse; not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm.

How I should love that plain-heartedness you speak of, if you would use it; nothing is civil but that amongst friends.

Chide me when I do anything that is not well, but then make haste to tell me that you have forgiven me, and that you are what I shall ever be, a faithful friend.

a real kindness is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of t'other mingled with it

A boy of spirit may acquire a previous and practical experience of the world; and his playfellows may be the future friends of his heart or his interest.

The unity of God preserves a unity in men--that is, a perpetual sympathy between man and man--which sympathy we must be subject to, if not in our joys, yet in our griefs.