Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter - if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be. What is this Better, this flying Ideal, but the perpetual promise of his Creator?

What you are comes to you.

Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen but society has chosen for us.

Nature is a tropical swamp in sunshine, on whose purlieus we hear the song of summer birds, and see prismatic dewdrops, - but her interiors are terrific, full of hydras and crocodiles.

If there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter, compared with the last decoration and completions of hisown comfort,--who would not so much as part with his ice- cream, to save them from rapine and manacles, I think I must not hesitate to satisfy that man that also his cream and vanilla are safer and cheaper by placing the negro nation on a fair footing than by robbing them.

Every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol.

The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.