I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.

In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle of the law. What is human warfare but just this, - an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party. Men make an arbitrary code, and, because it is not right, they try to make it prevail by might. The moral law does not want any champion. Its asserters do not go to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is inconsistent to decry war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war there would be no need of law.

The mason asks but a narrow shelf to spring his brick from; man requires only an infinitely narrower one to spring his arch of faith from.

What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes to relish the apple of life, the apple of the world, then!

There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,--not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved implements, and modes of culture only!