Existence alone had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was only from the force of his desires that he had regarded himself as a man to whom more was permitted than to others.
We will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it.
I affirm that gain is precisely that which comes oftener to the bad man than to the good; for illegitimate gains never come to the good at all, because they reject them. And lawful gains rarely come to the good, because, since much anxious care is needful thereto, and the anxious care of the good man is directed to weightier matters, rarely does the good man give sufficient attention thereto. Wherefore it is clear that in every way the advent of these riches is iniquitous.
A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
Its unadulterated belief in the oneness of God and a practical application of the truth of the brotherhood of man for those who are nominally within its fold are two distinctive contributions of Islam.
The stakes are immense, the task colossal, the time is short. But we may hope - we must hope - that man's own creation, man's own genius, will not destroy him.
Oh, most unhappy man,' he cried, 'try to be happy! You have red hair like your sister.' My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world,' said Gregory.
The Irish are people who will never have leaders, for at the great moment they always desert them. They have produced one skeleton--Parnell--never a man.
We have long struggles with ourself, of which the outcome is one of our actions; they are, as it were, the inner side of human nature. This inner side is God's; the outer side belongs to men.
Let a man learn to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting; let him learn to bear the disappearance of things he was wont to reverence; without losing his reverence; let him learn that he is here, not to work, but to be worked upon; and that, though abyss open under abyss, and opinion displace opinion, all are at last contained in the Eternal Cause.
That which man dreams of and to Which he aspires, unless fulfilled in his own lifetime, can produce no actual satisfaction to him. It will be self deceiving and a waste of time to advocate dialogue with those who are not ready to listen, because it is obvious that the freedom of millions is not a commodity subject to bargaining. It is better to die free than to live as slaves.