Wherever the appearance of a conventional aristocracy exists in America, it must arise from wealth, as it cannot from birth. An aristocracy of mere wealth is vulgar everywhere. In a republic, it is vulgar in the extreme.

While feeling far less injured by toil than my friends took for granted I must be, I yet was always aware of the strong probability that my life would end as the lives of hard literary workers usually end, - in paralysis, with months or years of imbecility.

it matters infinitely less what we do than what we are.

We do not believe in immortality because we can't prove it, but we try to prove it because we cannot help believing it.

Any one must see at a glance that if men and women marry those whom they do not love, they must love those whom they do not marry.

I think that few people are aware how early it is right to respect the modesty of an infant.

The highest condition of the religious sentiment is when. . . the worshiper not only sees God everywhere, but sees nothing which is not full of God.