Quote collection
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"We infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which is a sort of monument, to which each forcible individual in a course of many hundred years has contributed a stone."
"Language is a city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be credited with the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the coral reef which is the basis of the continent."
"Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason."
"In America and Europe, the nomadism is of trade and curiosity."
"The day is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims."
"Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply,- "'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.""
"All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are ... punished by fear."
"There is no eloquence without a man behind it."
"It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters, that whoever can speak can sing. So, probably, every man is eloquent once in his life. Our temperaments differ in capacity of heat, or"
"Wise men read very sharply all of your private history in your look and gait and behavior."
"Invention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph devised than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found. The aeronaut is provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants for his balloon."
"The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust."
"Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?."
"Religion must always be a crab fruit; it cannot be grafted, and keep its wild beauty."
"Natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals."
"The Americans have no faith, they rely on the power of a dollar; they are deaf to sentiment."
"Faith makes us, and not we it; and faith makes its own forms."
"What art can paint or gild any object in after life with the glow which nature gives to the first baubles of childhood? St. Peter's cannot have the magical power over us that the red and gold covers of our first picture-book possessed."
"Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches, and, to make knowledge valuable, you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom. Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished. The joy of the spirit indicates its strength. All healthy, things are sweet-tempered. Genius works in sport, and goodness smiles to the last."
"The borrower runs in his own debt."