Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

No man has a right perception of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be its martyr.

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken.

He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

I wish to speak with all respect of persons, but sometimes I must pinch myself to keep awake, and preserve the due decorum. They melt so fast into each other, that they are like grass and trees, and it needs an effort to treat them as individuals.

Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.