I--this thought which is called I--is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.

The good judge is not he who does hair-splitting justice to every allegation, but who, aiming at substantial justice, rules something intelligible of the guidance of suitors.

The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also.

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.