[A]s if life were a thunder-storm wherein you can see by a flash the horizon, and then cannot see your hand.

Coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities.

I wish to speak with all respect of persons, but sometimes I must pinch myself to keep awake, and preserve the due decorum. They melt so fast into each other, that they are like grass and trees, and it needs an effort to treat them as individuals.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.

We first share the life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we have shared their cause.

We honor the rich because they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to be proper to man, proper to us.

Every mind has a new compass, a new direction of its own, differencing its genius and aim from every other mind.--We call this specialty the bias of each individual. And none of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.