In England every man you meet is some man's son; in America, he may be some man's father.
The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied.
Thou art to me a delicious torment.
Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.
We must not tamper with the organic motion of the soul.
In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense.