It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascinationfor all educated Americans.

A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.

One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.

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

Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in.

Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven depending on whether they compare it to something better and so feel disappointed and bitter or something worse and so feel relieved and grateful.