Human improvement is from within outward.

A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies; but sensible men will pay no attention to them.

The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue.

Truth only smells sweet forever, and illusions, however innocent, are deadly as the canker worm.

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.

No person is ever good for much, that hasn't been swept off their feet by enthusiasm between ages twenty and thirty

History is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.