One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however, ancient, can be trusted without proof. ... Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, which in others are luxuries merely and in others still are entirely unknown.

He listens equally to the prayers of the believer and the unbeliever.

As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.

We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper.At any meeting of politicianshow impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution!