John Lubbock
A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.Collection: Wisdom
When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.Collection: Peace
Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.Collection: Happiness
Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.Collection: Nature
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.Collection: Nature
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.Collection: Nature
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.
Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.
We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.
If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.
Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not.
A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.
In this world we do not see things as they are. We see them as we are, because what we see depends mainly on what we are looking for.Collection: World
To be happy ourselves is a most effectual contribution to the happiness of others.Collection: Happiness
Happiness is a condition of mind not a result of circumstances.Collection: Mind
Cultivate all your faculties; you must either use them or lose themCollection: Use
Before buying anything, it is well to ask if one could do without it.Collection: Buying
Try to realize all the blessings you have, and you will find perhaps that they are more than you suppose.Collection: Blessing
Fresh air is as good for the mind as for the body. Nature always seems trying to talk to us as if she had some great secret to tell. And so she has.Collection: Air
Be cautious, but not too cautious; do not be too much afraid of making a mistake; a man who never makes a mistake will make nothing.Collection: Mistake
To render ourselves insensible to pain we must forfeit also the possibilities of happiness.Collection: Pain
Rest is by no means a waste of time.Collection: Mean
A crowd is not necessarily company, but neither need it necessarily prevent thought or disturb peace of mind.Collection: Mind
A man who is not a good friend to himself cannot be so to any one else.Collection: Good Friend
It always seems to be raining harder than it really is when you look at the weather through the window.Collection: Rain
We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee.Collection: Miracle
A kind word will give more pleasure than a present.Collection: Giving
Time is a trust, and for every minute of it you will have to account.Collection: Minutes
The world would be better and brighter if people were taught the duty of being happy as well as the happiness of doing their duty.Collection: Happiness
Exercise of the muscles keeps the body in health, and exercise of the brain brings peace of mind.Collection: Exercise
Our own happiness ought not to be our main objective in life.Collection: Happiness
There can be no merit in believing something which you can neither explain nor understand.Collection: Believe
The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it.Collection: Men
Reading and writing, arithmetic and grammar do not constitute education, any more than a knife, fork and spoon constitute a dinner.Collection: Education
Great battles are really won before they are actually fought. To control our passions we must govern our habits, and keep watch over ourselves in the small details of everyday life.Collection: Passion
Our great mistake in education is ... the worship of book-learning-the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. ... We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children-to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavour to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts.Collection: Education
Life is a great gift, and as we reach years of discretion, most of us naturally ask ourselves what should be the main object of our existence.Collection: Years
It would be a great thing if people could be brought to realize that they can never add to the sum of their happiness by doing wrong.Collection: Happiness
We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.Collection: Travel
However vexed you may be overnight, things will often look very different in the morning.Collection: Morning
Endurance is a much better test of character than any single act of heroism, however noble.Collection: Character
Though it is a great mistake to make friends of the wicked and foolish, it is unwise to make enemies of them, for they are very numerous.Collection: Mistake
Don't be afraid of showing affection. Be warm and tender, thoughtful and affectionate. Men are more helped by sympathy than by service. Love is more than money, and a kind word will give more pleasure than a present.Collection: Love
The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should have the opportunity of teaching itself. What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach himself more than the first ever knew.Collection: Education
Many a blessing has been recognized too late.Collection: Blessing
Happy indeed is the naturalist: to him the seasons come round like old friends; to him the birds sing: as he walks along, the flowers stretch out from the hedges, or look up from the ground, and as each year fades away, he looks back on a fresh store of happy memories.Collection: Memories
All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things of this world-not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.Collection: Horse
Many savage nations worship trees, and I really think my first feeling would be one of delight and interest rather than of surprise, if some day when I am alone in the woods one of the trees were to speak to me.Collection: Nature
Love seems to beautify and inspire all nature. It raises the earthly caterpillar into the ethereal butterfly, it paints the feathers in spring, it lights the glowworm's lamp, it wakens the song of birds, and inspires the poet's lay. Even inanimate Nature seems to feel the spell, and flowers glow with the richest colours.Collection: Song