The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself. For the real price is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

The youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires.

Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food, and an immense quiet

When we see a special reformer we feel like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your own virtue? Is virtue piecemeal?

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. The mind does not create what it perceives, anymore than the eye creates the rose.

Although this garrulity of advising is born with us, I confess that life is rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics. So muchfate, so much irresistible dictation from temperament and unknown inspiration enter into it, that we doubt we can say anything out of our own experience whereby to help each other.