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.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

Are you in want of amusement nowadays? Then play a little at the game of getting a living. There was never anything equal to it. Do it temperately, though, and don't sweat.

Truth is his inspirer, and earnestness the polisher of his sentences. He could afford to lose his Sharp's rifles, while he retained his faculty of speech,--a Sharp's rifle of infinitely surer and longer range.

It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.

The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory.

The poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity.