Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes: it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something else is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.

We say the cows laid out Boston. Well, there are worse surveyors.

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

[A]s if life were a thunder-storm wherein you can see by a flash the horizon, and then cannot see your hand.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Pines a thousand years old. Every year they must go farther for them: they recede, like beavers and Indians, before the white man.

The only prudence in life is concentration.