Works of the intellect are great only by comparison with each other.

Our thinking is a pious reception.

Heaven walks among us ordinarily muffled in such triple or tenfold disguises that the wisest are deceived and no one suspects the days to be gods.

As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man.

The maxim of courts is that manner is power.

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.

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.