How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!

I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.

The sun rarely shines in history, what with the dust and confusion; and when we meet with any cheering fact which implies the presence of this luminary, we excerpt and modernize it.

I love you not as something private and personal, which is my own, but as something universal and worthy of love which I have found.

The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us.

Still we live meanly like ants, though the fable tells us we were long ago changed into men.

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.