To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.

I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, commonly.

I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the leastact of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.

As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.

All endeavour calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.