Time is, after all, the greatest of poets; and the sons of Memory stand a better chance of being the heirs of Fame.

A great part of human suffering has its root in the nature of man, and not in that of his institutions.

It is not a great Xerxes army of words, but a compact Greek ten thousand that march safely down to posterity.

Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.

God does not weigh criminality in our scales. We have one absolute, with the seal of authority upon it; and with us an ounce is an ounce, and a pound a pound. God's measure is the heart of the offender,--a balance which varies with every one of us, a balance so delicate that a tear cast in the other side may make the weight of error kick the beam.

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.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us.