We acquire the strength we have overcome.

It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.

The hero is suffered to be himself.

A man of no conversation should smoke.

The world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessedno other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, which never gives, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of any project,--Will it bake bread?

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

The narrow sectarian cannot read astronomy with impunity. The creeds of his church shrivel like dried leaves at the door of the observatory.