I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers.

Excellence is the new forever.

Every natural power exhilarates; a true talent delights the possessor first.

Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning.

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.