To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live accordingly to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.

Here must all distrust be left behind; all cowardice must be ended.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. In the assurance of strength, there is strength, and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.

The wise man accepts his pain, endures it, but does not add to it.

You are a fool in four letters, my son.

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

Great wisdom is generous, petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech in cantankerous.

In life, all good things come hard, but wisdom is the hardest to come by.

Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles in the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.