To mistake money for wealth, is the same sort of error as to mistake the highway which may be the easiest way of getting to your house or lands, for the house and lands themselves.

It is a law, that every event depends on some law.

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

The natural tendency of representative government, as of modern civilisation, is towards collective mediocrity: and this tendency is increased by all reductions and extensions of the franchise, their effect being to place the principal power in the hands of classes more and more below the highest level of instruction in the community.

When the land is cultivated entirely by the spade and no horses are kept, a cow is kept for every three acres of land.

We often hear the teachers of all creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognize, so that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the conduct.... When it has come to be a hereditary creed, and to be received passively, not actively ... there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies ... until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human being.

Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.