You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

The most attractive sentences are not perhaps the wisest, but the surest and soundest.

It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain.

How full of the creative genius is the air in which these [snowflakes] are generated! I should hardly admire them more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat. Nature is full of genius. Full of the divinity. So that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.

I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

I love reform better than its modes.