The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

For every seeing soul, there are two absorbing facts - I, and the abyss.

There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; - read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.

Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws.

When we see a special reformer we feel like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your own virtue? Is virtue piecemeal?