The world leaves no track in space, and the greatest action of man no mark in the vast idea.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me,--when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no more. When I feel that we two meet in a perception, that our two souls are tinged with the same hue, and do as it were run into one, why should I measure degrees of latitude, why should I count Egyptian years?

Every individual strives to grow and exclude, to the extremities of the universe, and to impose the law of its being on every other creature.

Each man too is a tyrant in tendency, because he would impose his idea on others; and their trick is their natural defence. Jesuswould absorb the race; but Tom Paine or the coarsest blasphemer helps humanity by resisting this exuberance of power.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.