The soul knows only the soul; the web of events is the flowing robe in which she is clothed.

The difference between the actual and the ideal force of man is happily figured in by the schoolmen, in saying, that the knowledgeof man is an evening knowledge, vespertina cognitio, but that of God is a morning knowledge, matutina cognitio.

The cities drain the country of the best part of its population: the flower of the youth, of both sexes, goes into the towns, andthe country is cultivated by a so much inferior class. The land,--travel a whole day together,--looks poverty-stricken, and the buildings plain and poor.

A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap?

It is in the stomach of plants that development begins, and ends in the circles of the universe. 'Tis a long scale from the gorilla to the gentleman,--from the gorilla to Plato, Newton, Shakespeare,--to the sanctities of religion, the refinements of legislation, the summit of science, art, and poetry. The beginnings are slow and infirm, but it is an always accelerated march.