You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity.

In the woods we return to reason and faith.

I find nothing in fables more astonishing than my experience in every hour. One moment of a man's life is a fact so stupendous as to take the luster out of fiction.

The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.

Evermore in the world is this marvelous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

It is a greater joy to see the author's author, than himself.