The intellect has only one failing, which, to be sure, is a very considerable one. It has no conscience.

To put more faith in lies and hate than truth and love, is the true atheism.

Among the lessons taught by the French revolution, there is none sadder or more striking than this--that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma.

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind. Nor think I that God's world would fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less. Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change, is fitted to the hour; Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. I do not fear to follow out the truth.

It may be conjectured that it is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong is in their heads.

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.