The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.

You can hardly convince a man of error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grand-children may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.

There may be something petty in a refined taste; it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only.

A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.

It often happens that a man develops a deeper love and friendship with his pet cat or dog than he does with most of the other humans in his life.

All good things are wild and free.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.