Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance.

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. . Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.

What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed the will of some man?

Government exists to defend the weak and the poor and the injured party; the rich and the strong can better take care of themselves.

Nothing can work damage to me except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me and never am a real sufferer except by my own fault.

We have feudal governments in a commercial age. It would be but an easy extension of our commercial system, to pay a private emperor a fee for services, as we pay an architect, an engineer, or a lawyer. If any man has talent for righting wrong, for administering difficult affairs, for counselling poor farmers how to turn their estates to good husbandry, for combining a hundred private enterprises to a general benefit, let him in the county- town, or in Court-street, put up his sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working king.

Man sheds grief as his skin sheds rain.