Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.

Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

To be right is more honorable than to be law abiding.

I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.