For, truly speaking, whoever provokes me to a good act or thought has given me a pledge of his fidelity to virtue,--he has come under the bonds to adhere to that cause to which we are jointly attached.

When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,--muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise.

The squirrel hoards nuts and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.

An empire is an immense egotism.

The sciences, even the best,-mathematics and astronomy,-are like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it.

But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the intellect, without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure reason, the Trismegisti, the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.