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.

The astronomers said, 'Give us matter and a little motion and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces.' ... There is no end to the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through every atom of every ball.

By going one step further back in thought, discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still higher vision.

There is no better way to exercise the imagination than the study of the law.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

[on Thoreau:] For not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men, but homage solely to truth itself.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.