“In our progress toward political happiness my station is new; and if I may use the expression, I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.”

“[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.”

“Honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and only true policy; let us then as a nation be just.”

“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.”

“Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.”

“More permanent and genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life than in the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure.”

“A people who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything.”

“A man’s intentions should be allowed in some respects to plead for his actions.”

“I shall make it the most agreeable part of my duty to study merit, and reward the brave and deserving.”

“No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.”

“I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is the best policy.”

“Nothing is a greater stranger to my breast, or a sin that my soul more abhors, than that black and detestable one, ingratitude.”

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.”

“I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.”

“We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals.”

“There is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.”

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

“I shall not be deprived … of a comfort in the worst event, if I retain a consciousness of having acted to the best of my judgment.”

“Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.”

I am in love - and, my God, it is the greatest thing that can happen to a man. I tell you, find a woman you can fall in love with. Do it. Let yourself fall in love. If you have not done so already, you are wasting your life.

My whole working philosophy is that the only stable happiness for mankind is that it shall live married in blessed union to woman-kind - intimacy, physical and psychical between a man and his wife. I wish to add that my state of bliss is by no means perfect.

It is quite true, as some poets said, that the God who created man must have had a sinister sense of humor, creating him a reasonable being, yet forcing him to take this ridiculous posture, and driving him with blind craving for this ridiculous performance.

You don't want to love - your eternal and abnormal craving is to be loved. You aren't positive, you're negative. You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with love, because you've got a shortage somewhere.

The American grips himself, at the very sources of his consciousness, in a grip of care: and then, to so much of the rest of life, is indifferent. Whereas, the European hasn't got so much care in him, so he cares much more for life and living.

The only history is a mere question of one's struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.

Towns oftener swamp one than carry one out onto the big ocean of life.

People always make war when they say they love peace.

Reason is a supple nymph, and slippery as a fish by nature. She had as leave give her kiss to an absurdity any day, as to syllogistic truth. The absurdity may turn out truer.

One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindliness with its brutality.

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgement is never just.

The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else.

In every living thing there is the desire for love.

The business of art is to reveal the relation between man and his environment.

I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.

There is only one thing that a man really wants to do, all his life; and that is, to find his way to his God, his Morning Star, salute his fellow man, and enjoy the woman who has come the long way with him.

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive.

The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.

Life is a travelling to the edge of knowledge, then a leap taken.

Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.

Ethics and equity and the principles of justice do not change with the calendar.

Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror.

My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.

When one jumps over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

Tragedy is like strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.

I can never decide whether my dreams are the result of my thoughts, or my thoughts the result of my dreams.

This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.