Man is at the bottom an animal, midway a citizen, and at the top divine. But the climate of this world is such that few ripen at the top.

The fear of doing right is the grand treason in times of danger.

No man is good for anything who has not some particle of obstinacy to use upon occasion.

“I can forgive, but I cannot forget,” is only another way of saying, “I will not forgive.”

Any law that takes hold of a mans daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favor of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life.

Nowhere on the globe do men live so well as in America, or grumble so much.

Poverty is very good in poems but very bad in the house; very good in maxims and sermons but very bad in practical life.