What is experience? A poor little hut constructed from the ruins of the palace of gold and marble called our illusions.

We want our friend as a man of talent, less because he has talent than because he is our friend.

Like those statues which must be made larger than "nature" in order that, viewed from below, or from a distance, they may appear to be of the "natural" size, certain truths must be "strained" in order that the public may form a just idea of them.

That which deceives us and does us harm, also undeceives us and does us good.

Friendship admits of difference of character, as love does that of sex.

Let us pray! God is just, he tries us; God is pitiful, he will comfort us; let us pray!

History, if thoroughly comprehended, furnishes something of the experience which a man would acquire who should be a contemporary of all ages and a fellow citizen of all peoples.