Childhood itself is scarcely more lovely than a cheerful, kindly, sunshiny old age.

Work! work! that is my unfailing cure for all troubles.

A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.

They [slaves] have stabbed themselves for freedom-jumped into the waves for freedom-starved for freedom-fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot-and their tyrants have been their historians!

There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface.

We must not forget that all great revolutions and reformations would look mean and meagre if examined in detail as they occurred at the time.

The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.