We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

Freedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its object simply to make men good and wise. Its institutions then should be as flexible as the wants of men. That form out of which the life and suitableness have departed should be as worthless in its eyes as the dead leaves that are falling around us.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.

You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.

We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves.