In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

God, we are told, looked upon the world after he had created it and pronounced it good; but ascetic pietists, in their wisdom, cast their eyes over it, and substantially pronounce it a dead failure, a miserable production, a poor concern.

Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.

Next to faith in God, is faith in labor.

The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older, and societies better.

The knowledge beyond all other knowledge is the knowledge how to excuse.

We give our best affections to the beautiful, only our second best to the useful.