Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.

We must be courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.

A man passes for that he is worth. What he is engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, in letters of light. Concealment avails him nothing; boasting nothing. There is confession in the glances of our eyes; in our smiles; in salutations; and the grasp of hands.

Government has been a fossil: it should be a plant.

Nature is sanative, refining, elevating. How cunningly she hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses, and violets, and morning dew! Every inch of the mountains is scarred by unimaginable convulsions, yet the new day is purple with the bloom of youth and love.

In England every man you meet is some man's son; in America, he may be some man's father.