The deeds of love are less questionable than any action of an individual can be, for, it being founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which they are associated must be pure and noble indeed, for innocence and purity can have no equal. In this relation we deal with one whom we respect more religiously even than we respect our better selves, and we shall necessarily conduct as in the presence of God. What presence can be more awful to the lover than the presence of his beloved?

The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur.

If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.

Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature.

To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.

The man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.

When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?