I taught my boys it is easy to follow a crowd. Anybody can do that. It takes a man to stand up for your principles. You cut your own path in life. Chase after whatever your heart's desire is, and instead of following the crowd, let somebody else follow you. That takes a little guts.

One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men.

I say that man is entitled to his own happiness and that he must achieve it himself. But that he cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy.

If in 100 years I am only known as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes then I will have considered my life a failure.

Men are always ready to nose around and find out about other's lives, but they feel lazy to know themselves and correct their own life.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man, by one lower than himself.

The most affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out of the stronger wealth of himself.

How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city?

When you see a good man, think of emulating him; when you see a bad man, examine your own heart.

Gladly we desire to make other men perfect, but we will not amend our own fault.

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.

A man is worked on by what he works on.