It is curious that Christianity, which is idealism, is sturdily defended by the brokers, and steadily attacked by the idealists.

There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.

We are the prisoners of ideas. They catch us up for moments into their heaven, and so fully engage us, that we take no thought forthe morrow, gaze like children, without an effort to make them our own.

The great man, that is, the man most imbued with the spirit of the time, is the impressionable man.

The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother.

Body cannot teach wisdom; God only.

Self-command is the main elegance.