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

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.

The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.

Idleness induces caprice.

Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise.

Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.

Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.