The art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past.

I fear uniformity. You cannot manufacture great men any more than you can manufacture gold.

It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.

Like other beautiful things in this world, its end (that of a shaft) is to be beautiful; and, in proportion to its beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers.

Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves; and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.

Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite,--energy.

Make yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts. None of us knows what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought-proof against all adversity. Bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, treasure houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away from us.