He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.

Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

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

The one thing finished in this hasty world.

Democracy is that form of society, no matter what its political classification, in which every man has a chance and knows that he has it.

The true historical genius, to our thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the divine in the casual; and we somewhat suspect the depth of his insight into the past who cannot recognize the godlike of to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.