Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.

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.

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.

Carelessness is inexcusable, and merits the inevitable sequence.

The soul of man is not a thing which comes and goes, is builded and decays like the elemental frame in which it is set to dwell, but a very living force, a very energy of God's organic will, which rules and moulds this universe.

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

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