Commonsense is the wick of the candle.

It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist

Public opinion, I am sorry to say, will bear a great deal of nonsense. There is scarcely any absurdity so gross, whether in religion, politics, science or manners, which it will not bear.

Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.

Every action has an ancestor of a thought.

[on Thoreau:] For not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men, but homage solely to truth itself.

To eat bread is one thing; to love the precepts of Christ and resolve to obey them is quite another.