The more alike men are, the weaker each feels in the face of all.

Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.

He who seeks freedom for anything but freedom's self is made to be a slave.

So many of my thoughts and feelings are shared by the English that England has turned into a second native land of the mind for me.

General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human intellect.

When fortune has been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no common destiny. But this is a delusion which experience quickly corrects.