Those physical difficulties which you cannot account for, be very slow to arraign; for he that would be wiser than Nature would be wiser than God.

The spirit of dogmatic theology poisons anything it touches.

Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.

The turn of a sentence has decided the fate of many a friendship, and, for aught that we know, the fate of many a kingdom.

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.

Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.

Kind words cost no more than unkind ones . . . and we may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindliness around us at so little expense. If you would fall into any extreme let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists vigor and yields to softness.