Voting for the right is doing nothing for it.

When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an academy, a gang, a university.

They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.

Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.

In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts.

He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical.

The devil finds work for idle hands.