Our last deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity.

In my walks, I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

Voting for the right is doing nothing for it.

Priests and physicians should never look one another in the face. They have no common ground, nor is there any to mediate betweenthem. When the one comes, the other goes. They could not come together without laughter, or a significant silence, for the one's profession is a satire on the other's, and either's success would be the other's failure.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.