The quote database

Hence the necessity that he should have been well trained in habits, who is to study, with any tolerable chance of profit, the principles of nobleness and justice and moral philosophy generally.

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

When we have been engaged in the preliminaries to living for about fifty-five years, we begin to think about slacking off.

The beginning of wise living lies in the control of the brain by the will; so that the brain may act according to the precepts which the brain itself gives.

My aim is to show that only an inappreciable fraction of our ordered and sustained efforts is given to the business of actual living, as distinguished from the preliminaries to living.

The brain can be trained, as the hand and eye can be trained; it can be made as obedient as a sporting dog, and by similar methods.

There is no royal road to the control of the brain.

A person is idle because his thoughts dwell habitually on the instant pleasures of idleness.

The brain can be disciplined by learning the habit of obedience.

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

The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoilt, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your career.

If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions; if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin.

if your ordinary day's work is thus exhausting, then the balance of your life is wrong and must be adjusted

A man's powers ought not to be monopolised by his ordinary day's work.

The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.

In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect.

The supply of time, though gloriously regular, is cruelly restricted.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

It is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man find solitude intolerable.

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

The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

There is a direct pleasure in seeing work grow under one's hands day by day, until at last it is finished.

Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.

Ordinary people are sociable and complaisant just from the very opposite feeling;--to bear others' company is easier for them than to bear their own.

The truth is, that our nature is essentially restless in its character: we very soon get tired of having nothing to do; it is intolerable boredom.