Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is.

There is health in table talk and nursery play. We must wear old shoes and have aunts and cousins.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

We are shut up in school and college recitation rooms for ten to fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not know an edible root in the woods. We cannot tell our course by the stars, nor the hour of day by the sun. It is well if we can swim and skate. We are afraid of a horse or a cow, of a dog, of a cat, of a spider. Far better was the Roman rule to teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing.

Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is. The torments of martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers.

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

Knowledge is the only elegance.