Let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.

For the existing world is not a dream, and cannot with impunity be treated as a dream; neither is it a disease; but it is the ground on which you stand, it is the mother of whom you were born.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary.

What potent blood hath modest May.

It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.

Be a football to Time and Chance, the more kicks, the better, so that you inspect the whole game and know its utmost law.