Echoes

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good.

I rely on two precedents: first, to similar cases our Sages applied the verse, "It is time to do something in honour of the Lord: for they have made void thy law"... Secondly, they have said, "Let all thy acts be guided by pure intentions." ...Lastly, when I have a difficult subject before me—when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools—I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace.

He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

You are neither right nor wrong because people agree with you.

It would be better for me... that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

A state worthy of the name has no friends.

It would be better for me that the whole world should disagree with me than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.

You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. "What is this Truth you seek? What is this Beauty?" men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, "As others do, so will I. I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season." — then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect. ... Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in Nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom.

Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.

If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

The gentleman understands what is moral. The small man understands what is profitable.

Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth.

A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.

The fashion of this world passeth away and I would fain occupy myself with the things that are abiding.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.