It is defeat which educates us.

How casually and unobservedly we make all our most valued acquaintances.

A vivid thought brings the power to paint it; and in proportion to the depth of its source is the force of its projection.

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it; at any rate, brag.

In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense.

Begin and proceed on a settled conviction that but little is permitted to any man to do or to know, and if he complies with the first grand laws, he shall do well.