One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.

Invention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph devised than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found. The aeronaut is provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants for his balloon.

Nature is upheld by antagonism. Passions, resistance, danger, are educators. We acquire the strength we have overcome.

We are the prisoners of ideas.

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

Some men love only to talk where they are masters. They like to go to school-girls, or to boys, or into the shops where the sauntering people gladly lend an ear.

There was never anything that did not proceed from a thought.