The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.

We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

The never-ending task of self improvement.

The divine gift is ever the instant life, which receives and uses and creates, and can well bury the old in the omnipotency with which Nature decomposes all her harvest for recomposition.

There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said.