The best that we can do for one another is to exchange our thoughts freely; and that, after all, is about all.

In every department of life--in its business and in its pleasures, in its beliefs and in its theories, in its material developments and in its spiritual connections--we thank God that we are not like our fathers.

Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.

The endurance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the marvel of human society.

Nature is not a partisan, but out of her ample treasue house she produces children in infinite variety, of which she is equally the mother, and disowns none of them.

True greatness is the most ready to recognize and most willing to obey those simple outward laws which have been sanctioned by the experience of mankind.

We live merely on the crust or rind of things.