Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.

It takes me several days, after I get back to Boston, to realize that the reference "the president" refers to the president of Harvard and not to a minor official in Washington.

The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.

There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race.

The history of what the law has been is necessary to the knowledge of what the law is.

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible.

A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists in his being there.