Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man's nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon as it can do it with safety.

Nobody, they say, is a hero to his valet. Of course; for a man must be a hero to understand a hero. The valet, I dare say, has great respect for some person of his own stamp.

Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.

Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.

The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted.