Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work.

The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.

How can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions, as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so forth, since it melts will into perception, knowledge into act? Each becomes the other. Itself alone is.

This book of Montaigne the world has endorsed by translating it into all tongues.

Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so.

I have never met a man who was not my superior in some particular.

Manners aim to facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids travelling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space.