Life is very narrow. Bring any club or company of intelligent men together again after ten years, and if the presence of some penetrating and calming genius could dispose them to frankness, what a confession of insanities would come up!

For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?

The cruelest foe is a masked benefactor. The wars which make history so dreary have served the cause of truth and virtue.

I honor health as the first muse, and sleep as the condition of health. Sleep benefits mainly by the sound health it produces; incidentally also by dreams, into whose farrago a divine lesson is sometimes slipped.

Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know.

If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak.

The world is his who can see through its pretension.