There may be something petty in a refined taste; it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only.

I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.

In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.