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

That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.

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.

Every one of us ... knows better than he practices, and recognizes a better law than he obeys.

Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.

Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.

Beautiful is old age—beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer. In the old man, Nature has fulfilled her work; she loads him with blessings; she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, surrounded by his children and his children's children, she rocks him softly away to a grave, to which he is followed with blessings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful.