The meeting of two eternities, the past and future....is precisely the present moment.

On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days.... Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.

You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.

It becomes the moralist, too, to inquire what man might do to improve and beautify the system; what to make the stars shine more brightly, the sun more cheery and joyous, the moon more placid and content.

Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her.

When the true criminals are running around free, the only honorable place for a decent human being is in prisons.

There is no history of how bad became better.