It is a good lesson - though it may often be a hard one - for a man... to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.

I do detest all offices - all, at least, that are held on a political tenure.

A man's bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom.

Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!

Of all the events which constitute a person's biography, there is scarcely one ... to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death.

New England is quite as large a lump of earth as my heart can really take in.

In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.