The quote database

If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man.

The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals.

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

A man's power is hooped in by a necessity, which, by many experiments, he touches on every side, until he learns its arc.

Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote,--justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.

I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.

We cannot expect to make everyone our friend, but we can try to make no one our enemy.

Let us measure what we will do for others by what they will do for themselves.

We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.

These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.

We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last.

We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion

While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government.

Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress.

With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.

All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it.

To believe in immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life.

Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; and in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of the dead.

Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties.