Aristotle and Plato are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see that Aristotle platonizes.

Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.

I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.

When God lets loose a great thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.

We want but two or three friends, but these we cannot do without, and they serve us in every thought we think.

But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.

You must hear the birds song without attempting to render it into nouns and verbs.