There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn from the great repositories of nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages and the ages explained by the hours.

A great man will find a great subject, or which is the same thing, make any subject great.

The day is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims.

I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me.

One of our statesmen said, "The curse of this country is eloquent men."

There is a genius of a nation, which is not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which characterizes the society.

We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had with souls that made our souls wiser, that spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew, that gave us leave to be what we inly are.