Echoes

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

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

When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?

Character is higher than intellect...A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.

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.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

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

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

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.

Moral excellence is an ornament for personal beauty; righteous conduct, for high birth; success, for learning; and proper spending, for wealth.

I exist as I am, that is enough.

You should rather please yourself than the people; take thought for the quality, not the number, of judgements made about you.

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

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Though the whole world should praise him, he would not be stimulated to greater endeavour, and though the whole world should condemn him, he would not be depressed. So fixed was he in the difference between the internal judgement of himself and the external judgement of others.

The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.

The many are mean; only the few are noble.

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

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.