Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and naturally loves itself; and it gives itself to one or the other, and hardens itself against one or the other, as it chooses...it is the heart that feels God, not the reason; this is faith.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.

Love has no age as it is always renewing itself.

Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.