As machines get to be more and more like men, men will come to be more like machines.

It is disastrous to own more of anything than you can possess, and it is one of the most fundamental laws of human nature that our power actually to possess is limited.

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism, but February.... Spring is too far away to comfort even by anticipation, and winter long ago lost the charm of novelty. This is the very three a.m. of the calendar.

There are some optimists who search eagerly for the skunk cabbage which in February sometimes pushes itself up through the ice, and who call it a sign of spring. I wish that I could feel that way about it, but I do not. The truth of the matter, to me, is simply that skunk cabbage blooms in the winter time.

The typical American believes that no necessity of the soul is free and that there are precious few, if any, which cannot be bought.

To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to have never known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone.

To be individually righteous is the first of all duties, come what may to ones self, to one's country, to society, and to civilization itself.