Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success. What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree.

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.

It's only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.

On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days.... Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.

If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.