Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next age.

The public values the invention more than the inventor does. The inventor knows there is much more and better where this came from.

The squirrel hoards nuts and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.

An actually existing fly is more important than a possibly existing angel.

Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, andhave an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold.

Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns, whilst it abides for contemplation forever.

I am Defeated all the time, yet to Victory I am born.