Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds, in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and Holiness.

Nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere.

The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely thatwhich all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the Saviour rode.It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never weary of working it up.

Conformity is the ape of harmony.