That government is best which governs least.

There is considerable danger that a man will be crazy between dinner and supper; but it will not directly answer any good purposethat I know of, and it is just as easy to be sane.

If you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with all of its applications.

As all curves have reference to their centres or foci, so all beauty of character has reference to the soul, and is a graceful gesture of recognition or waving of the body toward it.

The phenomena of the year take place every day in a pond on a small scale. Every morning, generally speaking, the shallow water isbeing warmed more rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so warm after all, and every evening it is being cooled more rapidly until the morning. The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer. The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature.

To regret deeply is to live afresh.

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.