Next to happiness, perhaps enmity is the most healthful stimulant of the human mind.

Imagination is the first faculty wanting in those that do harm to their kind.

every generation has a conceit of itself which elevates it, in its own opinion, above that which comes after it.

The ideal is the flower-garden of the mind, and very apt to run to weeds unless carefully tended.

There is nothing more effectual in showing us the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption than to hear it sympathetically through the ears, as it were, of a skeptic.

... I have always been a disappointment to my friends. I have no gift of talk, not much to say; and though I have always been an excellent listener, that only succeeds under auspicious circumstances.

It is so seldom in this world that things come just when they are wanted.