Conflict, which rouses up the best and highest powers in some characters, in others not only jars the whole being, but paralyzes the faculties.

The moment in which the spirit meets death is perhaps like the moment in which it is embraced in sleep. I suppose it never happened to any one to be conscious of the immediate transition from the waking to the sleeping state.

What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of mind, for the moment realizes itself.

He that seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius: as he must needs paint for other minds, and not for his own.

Childhood sometimes does pay a second visit to man; youth never.

All government, all exercise of power, no matter in what form, which is not based in love and directed by knowledge, is a tyranny.

The true purpose of education is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us.