How many writers are there... who, breaking up their subject into details, destroy its life, and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about the parts.

Man is emphatically self-made.

There is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may fairly be done, and things which may not be done.

Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes. One alone is true to us; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our need.

Good is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it, truth never breaks through except through the sacrifice of those who spread it.

Now what is it moves our very hearts, and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this first, that they have done no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which makes their sufferings so especially touching.

Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to Nature; it is his history.