Private, accidental, confidential conversation breeds thought. Clubs produce oftener words.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

Genius is the power to labor better and more availably. Deserve thy genius: exalt it.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares when working to another aim.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect. A man does not see, that, as he eats, so he thinks: as he deals, so he is, and so he appears; he does not see that his son is the son of his thoughts and of his actions; that fortunes are not exceptions but fruits; that relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but everywhere and always; no miscellany, no exemption, no anomaly,--but method, and an even web; and what comes out, that was put in.

The piety of the Hebrew prophets purges their grossness. The circumcision is an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive.