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

It is the duty of men to judge men only by their actions. Our faculties furnish us with no means of arriving at the motive, the character, the secret self. We call the tree good from its fruits, and the man, from his works.

If we consider what happens in conversation, in reveries, in remorse, in times of passion, in surprises, in the instructions of dreams, wherein often we see ourselves in masquerade,--the droll disguises only magnifying and enhancing a real element, and forcing it on our distinct notice,--we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into knowledge of the secret of nature.

Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization.

All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle...is another riddle.

a good reader makes a good book

Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.