Some of the sweetest hours in life, in retrospect will be found to have been spent with books.

Life itself is ... a sleep within a sleep.

Emancipation is the demand of civilization. That is a principle; everything else is an intrigue.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

There is no eloquence without a man behind it.

Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly in endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.

Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquillity that religion is powerless to bestow.