Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience, if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and unschooled farmer's boy, stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the dissector or the antiquary.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers.

Happy the man who never puts on a face, but receives every visitor with that countenance he has on.

For every seeing soul, there are two absorbing facts - I, and the abyss.

There is always safety in valor.

All violence, all that is dreary and repels, is not power, but the absence of power.