The superstition respecting power and office is going to the ground. The stream of human affairs flows its own way, and is very little affected by the activity of legislators. What great masses of men wish done, will be done; and they do not wish it for a freak, but because it is their state and natural end.

Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by originality.

Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in which this element may not work.

Do what we can, summer will have its flies.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.

In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion.

The virtue of books is to be readable.