The observation of others is coloured by our inability to observe ourselves impartially. We can never be impartial about anything read more

The observation of others is coloured by our inability to observe ourselves impartially. We can never be impartial about anything until we can be impartial about our own organism. - Essays and Aphorisms.

Tragedy and comedy are but two aspects of what is real, and whether we see the tragic or the humorous read more

Tragedy and comedy are but two aspects of what is real, and whether we see the tragic or the humorous is a matter of perspective.

To label me an intellectual is a misunderstanding of what that is.

To label me an intellectual is a misunderstanding of what that is.

Within yourself deliverance must be searched for, because each man makes his own prison.

Within yourself deliverance must be searched for, because each man makes his own prison.

The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of commerce, and the diffusion of education, read more

The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of commerce, and the diffusion of education, than upon the labors of cabinets and foreign offices.

To linger in the observation of things other than the self implies a profound conviction of their worth. - My read more

To linger in the observation of things other than the self implies a profound conviction of their worth. - My Friends the Senses.

Freedom all solace to man gives: He lives at ease that freely lives.

Freedom all solace to man gives: He lives at ease that freely lives.

Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that read more

Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs.

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish good results while the strongest, by read more

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish good results while the strongest, by dispersing his effort over many chores, may fail to accomplish anything. Drops of water, by continually falling, hone their passage through the hardest of rocks but the hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar and leaves no trace behind.