The goof man, in dealing with his people, taxes them with luxury.

When the literary class betray a destitution of faith, it is not strange that society should be disheartened and sensualized by unbelief.

He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets — most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth.

I suppose an entire cabinet of shells would be an expression of the whole human mind; a Flora of the whole globe would be so likewise, or a history of beasts; or a painting of all the aspects of the clouds. Everything is significant.

A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.

We learn that God IS; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows of him.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men that is genius.