To the men of this world, to the animal strength and spirits, to the men of practical power, whilst immersed in it, the man of ideas appears out of his reason. They alone gave reason.

Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function; living is the functionary.

The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.

...most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right.

All high beauty has a moral element in it.

Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work.

Every spirit makes its house, and we can give a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant.