There are epidemics of nobleness as well as epidemics of disease.

English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts.

Morality, when vigorously alive, sees farther than intellect, and provides unconsciously for intellectual difficulties.

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

The moral system of the universe is like a document written in alternate ciphers, which change from line to line.

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

The solitary side of our nature demands leisure for reflection upon subjects on which the dash and whirl of daily business, so long as its clouds rise thick about us, forbid the intellect to fasten itself.