Government has come to be a trade, and is managed solely on commercial principles. A man plunges into politics to make his fortune, and only cares that the world shall last his days.

Go forth into the busy world and love it. Interest yourself in its life, mingle kindly with its joys and sorrows.

God never jests with us, and will not compromise the end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession.

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. (Despite) all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether... The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.