Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not. But one veilhangs over past, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought, you will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts; where a battle is being fought, there are hearts beating.

I have not the most definite designs on the future.

Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought, go about doing good.

Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.

A hero's love is as delicate as a maiden's.

I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated fromlong housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn.

A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,Mthat was what distinguished him.