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.

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.

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

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.

There is always a part of our being into which those who are dearer to us far than our own lives are yet unable to enter.

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

We must have the real thing before we can have a science of a thing.