The greatest events-they are not our loudest but our stillest hours.

My conception of freedom. — The value of a thing sometimes does not lie in that which one attains by it, but in what one pays for it — what it costs us. Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions.

Great intellects are skeptical.

What I really want from Music: That it be cheerful and profound like an afternoon in October.

Most people are too stupid to act in their own interest

My abyss speaks, I have turned my ultimate depth inside out into the light.

A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.