It is greatest to believe and to hope well of the world, because he who does so, quits the world of experience, and makes the world he lives in.

My life is not an apology, but a life.

A man's personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.

We aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of exaggeration in it.

Every mind is different; and the more it is unfolded, the more pronounced is that difference.

Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks the wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open.

Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.