Be lord of a day, through wisdom and justice, and you can put up your history books.

In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended.

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

I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.

All great men come out of the middle classes.

The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco.

The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.