The smallest bird cannot light upon the greatest tree without sending a shock to its most distant fiber.

The monuments of the nations are all protests against nothingness after death; so are statues and inscriptions; so is history.

What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart.

It is never wise to slip the bands of discipline.

The architect had not stopped to bother about columns and porticos, proportions or interiors, or any limitation upon the epic he sought to materialize; he had simply made a servant of Nature - art can go no further.

To begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty--to the poor and humble.

As a rule, he fights well who has wrongs to redress; but vastly better fights he who, with wrongs as a spur, has also steadily before him a glorious result in prospect--a result in which he can discern balm for wounds, compensation for valor, remembrance and gratitude in the event of death.