Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny

So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more, thank God! to its most charming chapter. The violets and the Mayflowers are as its inscriptions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us, when we open again at these pages of the book of life.

Words are good, but there is something better. The best cannot be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the chief matter. Action can only be only understood and represented by the spirit.

One can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.