Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
Themes
Character
What a person is, and what he must become.
The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
Disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.
Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
Character is destiny.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong.
If your abilities are only mediocre, modesty is mere honesty; but if you possess great talents, it is hypocrisy.
Mature manhood: that means to have rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play.
The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
What does your conscience say? — You shall become the person you are.
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
Never ruin an apology with an excuse.
Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.
Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.
I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
People in those old times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral.
We confess our little faults only to persuade others that we have no great ones.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
This above all: to thine own self be true.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.