Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

Truth has not single victories; all things are its organs,--not only dust and stones, but errors and lies.

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society. ... Society can never prosper, but must always be bankrupt, until every man does that which he was created to do.

I find nothing healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society. I do not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a destructive tax in my conformity.

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

What is there of the divine in a load of brick? What ... in a barber shop? ... Much. All.

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide. Him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him because he did not need it.