We are amphibious creatures, weaponed for two elements, having two sets of faculties, the particular and the catholic.

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

People forget that it is the eye which makes the horizon, and the rounding mind's eye which makes this or that man a type or representative of humanity with the name of hero or saint.

A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engraffed with a foreign stock.

I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other, private opinion; one, fame, the other, desert; one, feats, the other, humility; one, lucre, the other, love; one, monopoly, and the other, hospitality of mind.

We are the children of many sires, and every drop of blood in us in its turn betrays its ancestor.

The gates of thought, - how slow and late they discover themselves! Yet when they appear, we see that they were always there, always open.