Habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them either. They read more

Habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them either. They keep you. - Essays.

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.

I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors read more

I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first.

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

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

Some men see things as they are and ask, 'why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'why not?'"NB: read more

Some men see things as they are and ask, 'why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'why not?'"NB: This quote is a paraphrase from a similar quote by G. B. Shaw.

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.

If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he read more

If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking -- one sport you shouldn't have to reserve a time and a court for.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo read more

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time read more

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.