Echoes

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you, but answer: He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer intelligence.

Whoever gives reverence receives reverence.

Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting.

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

I will have nought to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath.

The many are mean; only the few are noble.

If the public thought elevates you above the generality of men, let the other humble you, and hold you in a perfect equality with all mankind, for this is your natural condition.

Do not mistake yourself by believing that your being has something in it more exalted than that of others.

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.

If you act externally with men in conformity with your rank, you should recognize, by a more secret but truer thought, that you have nothing naturally superior to them.

No man is entirely free from weakness and imperfection in this life. Men of the most exalted genius and active minds are generally most perfect slaves to the love of fame. They sometimes descend to as mean tricks and artifices in pursuit of honor or reputation as the miser descends to in pursuit of gold.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise or, at least, neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.