1
Unable to perceive a single chance of regaining their equality, they give up to despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of human nature.
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2
There is no doubt that a blizzard has a bewildering and numbing effect upon the brain of any one exposed to it.
3
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.
4
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.
5
The brain can be disciplined by learning the habit of obedience.
6
A person is idle because his thoughts dwell habitually on the instant pleasures of idleness.
7
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.
8
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that a man cannot forget,--but not himself, his own character.
9
To have no regular work, no set sphere of activity--what a miserable thing it is!
10
No man is so formed that he can be left entirely to himself, to go his own ways; everyone needs to be guided by a preconceived plan, and to follow certain general rules.
11
Who does not see from all this that man has gone astray, that he has fallen from his place, that he seeks it with disquiet, that he cannot regain it?
12
Cast down your bucket where you are.
13
Mere intelligence is still not courage, for we often see the cleverest people devoid of resolution.
14
There are persons who possess the keenest perception for the most difficult problems, who are also not fearful of responsibility, and yet in cases of difficulty cannot come to a resolution.
15
Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult.
16
My household-gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood.
17
Be determined to get up, to reach the highest goal you have in view, and you will.
18
I suppose the Patron meant that if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn.
Wrongly attributed
Sold on posters as an ancient Chinese proverb and as Confucius, Lao Tzu or Maimonides by turns. Its first known appearance in English is this one, in a now-forgotten novel by Thackeray's daughter, published in 1885. What almost nobody quoting it knows is that even here it is second-hand: Max is not stating his own principle, he is guessing at what an absent character called the Patron meant. The wording is also not the familiar one. There is no feed him for a day and no feed him for a lifetime; there is an hour, and a good turn.
19
the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step
Confuciusmisattributed·The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics (trans. James Legge)·1891
Wrongly attributed
Not Confucius. The line is from the Tao Teh King, a different book by a different school, traditionally ascribed to Laozi -- a figure whose very existence historians doubt. Two things drift in the popular version: li becomes miles, and commenced becomes begins with. Legge's 1891 translation, the standard English text for a century, says neither.
20
To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.
21
Your life will never be a straight path.
22
Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment; and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion.
23
Our attempts to banish this importunate duty will only make it return upon us again and again, and every time in a shape more unpleasant than the former.
24
Do you think I was born to live the life of an oyster, such as I do live here?
25
If I have set my admiration on the poor body, I have given myself up to be a slave; if on my poor possessions, I also make myself a slave.