In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock aswell as from the top of the Alleghanies. The stars at night stoop down over the brownest, homeliest common, with all the spiritual magnificence which they shed on the Campagna, or on the marble deserts of Egypt.

The light by which we see in this world comes out from the soul of the observer. Wherever any noble sentiment dwelt, it made the faces and houses around to shine. Nay, the powers of this busy brain are miraculous and illimitable.

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.

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.

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

I can reason down or deny everything, except this perpetual Belly: feed he must and will, and I cannot make him respectable.

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem.