That aim in life is highest which requires the highest and finest discipline.

There is considerable danger that a man will be crazy between dinner and supper; but it will not directly answer any good purposethat I know of, and it is just as easy to be sane.

Comparatively, we can excuse any offense against the heart, but not against the imagination. The imagination knows--nothing escapes its glance from out its eyry--and it controls the breast.

When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country [Mexico] is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

We are all of us Apollos serving some Admetus.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.