"The things you're running away from are with you all the time."
"For the only safe harbour in this life's tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring and to stand ready and confident, squaring the breast to take without skulking or flinching whatever fortune hurls at us."
"It's not because they're hard that we lose confidence; they're hard because we lack the confidence."
"Freedom cannot be won without sacrifice. If you set a high value on her, everything else must be valued at little."
"Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them. Look at the number of things we buy because others have bought them or because they’re in most people’s houses. One of the causes of t"
"...if we realize that there are two classes of things attracting or repelling us. We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means. It follows that we need"
"...the kind of talk to which we would be better to turn our ears is this: ‘No man’s good by accident. Virtue has to be learnt. Pleasure is a poor and petty thing. No value should be set on it: it’s something we share with dumb animals – the minutest, most insignificant creatures scutter after it. Gl"
"Devotion to what is right is simple, devotion to what is wrong is complex and admits of infinite variations. ... the chief cause of this disease, in my opinion, is an attitude of disdain for a normal existence."