Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.

The gifts of Heaven are never quite gratuitous.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.