Life is our dictionary.

The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.

Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.

I read your piece on Plato. Holmes, when you strike at a king, you must kill him.

Throughout the ages there have always been those who have been willing to go beyond the norms and reach for that unknown and distant star.

Every man is actually weak, and apparently strong. To himself, he seems weak; to others, formidable.

Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,--at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories.