All that man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love-to sing, and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.

Truth is always paradoxical.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man,--and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,--it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.

We love to hear some men speak, though we hear not what they say; the very air they breathe is rich and perfumed, and the sound of their voices falls on the ear like the rustling of leaves or the crackling of the fire. They stand many deep.

One revelation has been made to the Indian, another to the white man.