All history is the decline of war, though the slow decline. All that society has yet gained is mitigation; the doctrine of the right of war still remains.

The statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of criticism, and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it, and to say what it is in the act of doing.

The wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand.

Only be admonished by what you already see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances which no God attends.

There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.

The first point of courtesy must always be truth.

Goodness that preaches undoes itself.