A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it.

Astronomers have built telescopes which can show myriads of stars unseen before; but when a man looks through a tear in his own eye, that is a lens which opens reaches into the unknown, and reveals orbs which no telescope, however skilfully constructed, could do.

Newspapers are to the body politic what arteries are to the human body, their function being to carry blood and sustenance and repair to every part of the body.

The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.

Do not be afraid of defeat. You are never so near victory as when you are defeated in a good cause.

It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work; it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.

As plants take hold, not for the sake of staying, but only that they may climb higher, so it is with men. By every part of our nature we clasp things above us, one after another, not for the sake of remaining where we take hold, but that we may go higher.