When I walk up the piazza of Santa Croce I feel as if it were not a Florentine nor an European church but a church built by and for the human race.

Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the Saviour rode.It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles.

Everything is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour if seen as experience.

There is hope in extravagance, there is none in routine.

As men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat less solicitude to be lulled or amused. In the progress ofthe character, there is an increasing faith in the moral sentiment, and a decreasing faith in propositions.