The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he's wise.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?

Opinions: men's thoughts about great subjects. Taste: their thoughts about small ones: dress, behavior, amusements, ornaments.

trouble always seems heavier when it is only one's thought and not one's bodily activity that is employed about it.

... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.