That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.

If we really believed that those who are gone from us were as truly alive as ourselves, we could not invest the subject with such awful depth of gloom as we do. If we could imbue our children with distinct faith in immortality, we should never speak of people as dead, but passed into another world. We should speak of the body as a cast-off garment, which the wearer had outgrown; consecrated indeed by the beloved being that used it for a season, but of no value within itself.

Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.

a great mind can attend to little things, but a little mind cannot attend to great things.

Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.

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

Philosophy and the arts are but a manifestation of the intelligible ideas that move the public mind; and thus they become visible images of the nations whence they emanate.