reflection quotes

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

Shall I, that have destroyed my Preservers, return home?

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

My one big regret is that I didn’t play on for ten more years.

Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it.

I am rather inclined to silence.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.