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

The first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies...

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

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.

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.

Where nature is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self-denial.

We live merely on the crust or rind of things.