politicians ... turn patriotism into shopkeeping and their own interest - men who care far more for who governs us than for how we are governed.. And what will be the end of such ways? I will tell you. We shall have a Democracy that will be the reign of those who know the least and talk the loudest.

... good and evil are so interwoven in life that every good, traced up far enough, is found to involve evil. This is the great mystery of life.

There is much said about the wickedness of doing evil that good may come. Alas! there is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

I wear the key of memory, and can open every door in the house of my life.

Men can bear all things but good days.

I have seen that every one forgives much in themselves that they find unpardonable in other people.

when we leave society and come into the presence of Nature, we become children again; and the fictions of thought and action assumed among men drop off like a garment.