I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the show fiber has passed into your body.

Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year.

A low self-love in the parent desires that his child should repeat his character and fortune.

What is there of the divine in a load of brick? What ... in a barber shop? ... Much. All.

If the gatherer gathers too-much, Nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates, monopolies and exceptions.