To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.

We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.

We can really respect a man only if he doesn't always look out for himself.

Were not the eye made to receive the rays of the sun, it could not behold the sun; if the peculiar power of God lay not in us, how could the godlike charm us?

The history of mankind is his character.

Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it is securely founded; that it be successfully executed.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.