Sanity is very rare; every man almost and every woman has a dash of madness.

There is a genius of a nation, which is not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which characterizes the society.

The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation.

In our Mechanics' Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenter's planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer instruments,--rain-gauges, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander.

What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us, but makes us intellectual beings.