The greatest and saddest defect is not credulity, but an habitual forgetfulness that our science is ignorance.

I delight to come to my bearings,... not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sitthoughtfully while it goes by.

Writing may be either the record of a deed or a deed. It is nobler when it is a deed.

That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

It gets laughed at because it is a small town, I know, but nevertheless it is a place where great men may be born any day, for fair winds and foul blow right on over it without distinction.

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health.