Good deeds are no less good because their object is unworthy.

Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.

The most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.

Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her.

The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.