Poverty comes pleading not for charity, for the most part, but imploring us to find a purchaser for its unmarketable wares.

Science is the topography of ignorance. From a few elevated points we triangulate vast spaces, inclosing infinite unknown details. We cast the lead, and draw up a little sand from abysses we may never reach with our dredges.

The very minute a thought is threatened with publicity it seems to shrink towards mediocrity.

Men are tattooed with their special beliefs like so many South Sea Islanders; but a real human heart with divine love in it beats with the same glow under all the patterns of all earth's thousand tribes.

A man's opinions are generally of much more value than his arguments.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.

Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.