Quotes About Priorities

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor.

It's not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?

Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.

No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to.

If I should sell my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for.

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.

Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk.

I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and ready, speak of his 'furniture,' as whether it is insured or not. 'But what shall I do with my furniture?'...It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Alles, was unserer körperlichen Ernährung und Pflege dient, lassen wir uns mehr kosten als unsere geistige Ernährung.

I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.

It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.

No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.

This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it

Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agriculture even politics, the most alarming of them all—I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape.

Quanto ad adottare le soluzioni offerte dallo Stato per portare rimedio al male - io, quelle soluzioni, non le conosco: richiedono troppo tempo e un uomo morirebbe prima di riuscire a metterle in atto. Ho altre cose cui badare. Venni al mondo non principalmente per trasformarlo in un luogo buono dove vivere ma per vivervi, buono o cattivo che fosse. Un uomo non deve fare tutto, ma qualche cosa; e poiché tutto non lo può fare, non è necessario che faccia qualcosa di sbagliato.

It is not enought to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

vi har så travlt med at anlægge en magnetisk telegraf fra maine til texas; men måske har maine og texas ikke noget af vigtighed at meddele hinanden

This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet.

Warum leben wir in solcher Hast, mit solcher Vergeudung von Leben? Wir glauben, Hungers zu sterben, bevor wir hungrig sind. Es heißt, ein Stich zur rechten Zeit erspart neun andere - also werden lieber gleich tausend Stiche gemacht, um neun für den nächsten Tag zu ersparen.