Some hard and dry book in a dead language, which you have found it impossible to read at home, but for which you still have a lingering regard, is the best to carry with you on a journey.

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor.

What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

How imperceptibly the first springing takes place!

As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let not your right hand know what your left hand does in that line of business. It will prove a failure.... It is a greater strain than any soul can long endure. When you get God to pulling one way, and the devil the other, each having his feet well braced,--to say nothing of the conscience sawing transversely,--almost any timber will give way.

I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country at a later and more convenient hour.