Echoes

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

Wealth and honor are what every man desires. But if they have been obtained in violation of moral principles, they must not be kept.

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.

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.

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

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

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

My life is my message.

Virtue is the root; wealth is the result.

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.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

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

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.

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

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

Whatever you are, be a good one.

Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.

That is not riches, which may be lost; virtue is our true good and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost; that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them.

Never stray from the Way.

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

Ten thousand do not turn the scale against a single man of worth.

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

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

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.