Boston was a moral and intellectual nursery, always busy applying first principles to trifles.

In any close society it is more urgent to restrain others than to be free oneself. Hence the tendency for the central authority to absorb and supersede such as are local or delegated.

Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with the part of another; people are friends in spots.

Even under the most favorable circumstances no mortal can be asked to seize the truth in its wholeness or at its center.

Chaos is perhaps at the bottom of everything.

The dreamer can know no truth, not even about his dream, except by awaking out of it.

A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.