Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds, even of a high order, should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

A poet must need be before his own age, to be even with posterity

O reputation! dearer far than life.

Good heavens, of what un costly material is our earthly happiness composed... if we only knew it. What incomes have we not had from a flower, and how unfailing are the dividends of the seasons.

Most men make the voyage of life as if they carried sealed orders which they were not to open till they were fairly in mid-ocean.

In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.