Self-command is the main elegance.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.

The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity

The human body is a magazine of inventions, the patent office, where are the models from which every hint is taken. All the tools and engines on earth are only extensions of its limbs and senses.

The field cannot be well seen from within the field. The astronomer must have his diameter of the earth's orbit as a base to fix the parallax of any other star

As much wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may be drawn from it.

Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most apprehensive and sympathetic hour.