As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallen gods, with the vices of men, but in many important respects essentially of the divine race.

Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show. A companion with whom I was sailing one very windy but bright moonlight night, when the stars were few and faint, thought that a man could get along with them,-though he was considerably reduced in his circumstances,-that they were a kind of bread and cheese that never failed.

The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.