That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

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

Morning brings back the heroic ages.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

It [is of] some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessities of life.