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

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds;the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent.

When a man becomes cultivated, he develops a new respect for who he is. This causes him to be ashamed of his past identification of himself and others according to things, i.e. property.

I am so much a Unitarian as this: that I believe the human mind can admit but one God, and that every effort to pay religious homage to more than one being goes to take away all right ideas.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

If a man fasten his attention on a single aspect of truth and apply himself to that alone for a long time, the truth becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood.