“In general, any methods of discipline applied to the body which tend to modify its desires or repulsions, are good—for ascetic ends. But if done for display, they betray at once a man who keeps an eye on outward show; who has an ulterior purpose, and is looking for spectators to shout, "Oh what a great man!" This is why Apollonius so well said: "If you are bent upon a little private discipline, wait till you are choking with heat one day—then take a mouthful of cold water, and spit it out again, and tell no man!"”

“Man who betrayed you once would betray you twice.”

“Art will never get its own, nor do its proper work in the discipline of life, until the sense of its sacred character comes once more into the general judgment, and masses of men look upon it as the few great spirits have looked who have been its true masters and interpreters”

“What you are is a man who means to be good, and undo the bad he’s done, and that’s as good as any man ever gets.”

“There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”

“What is the purpose of houses? It is to protect us from the wind and cold of winter, the heat and rain of summer, and to keep out robbers and thieves. Once these ends have been secured, that is all. Whatever does not contribute to these ends should be eliminated.”

“Why was the judgement of the disapproving so valuable? Who said that their good opinions tended to be any more rational than those of generally pleasant people?”

“What has to die will die, and what has to remain will remain. Supposing you dig a well and the water dries up. Just because the well went dry, you cannot say that there is no water there. You cannot say that the spring is dead, for if you dig down one more foot, water will again spring up. If people will only dig a little deeper, they will find the water there. Of course, they can say, “There is no water in the well any more,” and go away. But those who have real thirst will dig a little deeper, and they will find water there. What is will always be. That which dies is dead and gone, but that which is will always be.”

“You lose no time in taking out a fly,
Or straw, it may be, that torments your eye;
Why, when a thing devours your mind, adjourn
Till this day year all thought of the concern?
Come now, have courage to be wise: begin:
You're halfway over when you once plunge in:
He who puts off the time for mending, stands
A clodpoll by the stream with folded hands,
Waiting till all the water be gone past;
But it runs on, and will, while time shall last.”

“Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.”