William Rounseville Alger Quotes

The best aphorisms are.... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs.

Courage makes a man more than himself; for he is then himself plus his valor.

Ignorance is the mother of suspicion.

A crowd always thinks with its sympathy, never with its reason.

After every storm the sun will smile; for every problem there is a solution, and the soul's indefeasible duty is to be of good cheer.

The devil may be bullied, but not the Deity.

False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis.

Fate is the friend of the good, the guide of the wise, the tyrant of the foolish, the enemy of the bad.

The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.

Aphorisms are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling.

How sublime is the audacious tautology of Mohammed, God is God!

Keep your working power at its maximum.

A blue eye is a true eye; Mysterious is a dark one, Which flashes like a spark sun! A black eye is the best one.

Every man is his own greatest dupe.

In the rest of Nirvana all sorrows surcease: Only Buddha can guide to that city of Peace Whose inhabitants have the eternal release.

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.

God hands gifts to some, whispers them to others.

I would give more for the private esteem and love of one than for the public praise of ten thousand.

Common sense is the average sensibility and intelligence of men undisturbed by individual peculiarities.

He who is master of all opinions can never be the bigot of any.

Heart's-ease is a flower which blooms from the grave of desire.

Public opinion is the atmosphere of society, without which the forces of the individual would collapse, and all the institutions of society fly into atoms.

What is the highest secret to victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with destiny.

The flower which we do not pluck is the only one which never loses its beauty or its fragrance.

The most terrible of all things is terror.