All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.
I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than that.
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow.
The cure for pain is in the pain.
I have had good experience and trial of this world...I know what it is to be a subject, what to be a sovereign, what to have good neighbours, and sometimes meet evil willers. I have found treason in trust, seen great benefits little regarded.
To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.
A friend to all is a friend to none
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
I know I am but mortal and so therewhilst prepare myself for death, whensoever it shall please God to send it.
An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.
I have no desire to make windows into mens souls
It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
What you're thinking is what you're becoming.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
If you don't know where you're from, you'll have a hard time saying where you're going.
Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.
One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.