A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact.

The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Happy is the house that shelters a friend.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets another.

The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love.

Can another be so blessed, and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune.

Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort.

Always scorn appearances, and you always may.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is, “Let there be truth between us two forever more”.

Friends seem to be only mirrors to draw out and explain to us ourselves; and that which draws us nearer our fellow man, is, that the deep Heart in one, answers the deep Heart in another, — that we find we have (a common Nature) — one life which runs through all individuals, and which is indeed Divine.

The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.

Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, forthwith, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words.

I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.

I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.

It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery.

Friendship demands a religious treatment. We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it.

The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.

Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. 

Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.

Men are better than their theology.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of God.

In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity.

We ask for long life, but ’tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.

A moment is a concentrated eternity.

What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

Sickness is poor-spirited, and cannot serve anyone; it must husband its resources to live. But health or fullness answers its own ends, and has to spare, runs over, and inundates the neighborhoods and creeks of other men’s necessities.

The best part of health is fine disposition. It is more essential than talent, even in the works of talent.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased, you are nourished. The joy of the spirit indicates its strength. All healthy things are sweet-tempered.

Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity.

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

Life is a journey, not a destination