Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.
Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.
Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade.
Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of laborers Unions.
Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.
Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.
Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.
Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.
How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?
It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.
Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.
Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.
Nearly all the powerful people of this age are unbelievers, the best of them in doubt and misery, the most in plodding hesitation, doing as well as they can, what practical work lies at hand.
A book worth reading is worth buying.