All life is an experiment.

There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

All men, in the abstract, are just and good; what hinders them, in the particular, is, the momentary predominance of the finite and individual over the general truth. The condition of our incarnation in a private self, seems to be, a perpetual tendency to prefer the private law, to obey the private impulse, to the exclusion of the law of the universal being.

For nonconformity the world will whip you with its displeasure.

Solitude is naught and society is naught. Alternate them and the good of each is seen.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinction. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice, on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage, can plead any immunity; they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all.