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

Nature is less partial than she appears, and all situations in life have their compensations along with them.

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

We enter the world alone, we leave it alone.

The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.

A person possessed with an idea cannot be reasoned with.

The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness. Where we find a heroic life appearing as the uniform fruit of a particular mode of opinion, it is childish to argue in the face of fact that the result ought to have been different.