Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be too cruel.

Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.

The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.

As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.

In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the sand.