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

There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or at the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history.

The happiness of love is in action; its test is what one is willing to do for others.

Pure wisdom always directs itself towards God; the purest wisdom is knowledge of God.

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

When people are lonely they stoop to any companionship.

Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labor,the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the graves are there no dreams.