Success to the strongest, who are always, at last, the wisest and best.

Health, south wind, books, old trees, a boat, a friend.

There are men too superior to be seen except by a few, as there are notes too high for the scale of most ears.

Prayer that craves a particular commodity, anything less than all good, is vicious.

Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for thousands of years, were not handsome men.

Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever.

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.