Americans need rest, but do not know it.

All great books contain boring portions, and all great lives have contained uninteresting stretches.

One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days.

There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.

I should like to believe my people's religion, which was just what I could wish, but alas, it is impossible. I have really no religion, for my God, being a spirit shown merely by reason to exist, his properties utterly unknown, is no help to my life. I have nor the parson's comfortable doctrine that every good action has its reward, and every sin is forgiven. My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.