We may like well to know what is Plato’s and what is Montesquieu’s or Goethe’s part, and what thought was always dear to the writer himself; but the worth of the sentences consists in their radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelligence. They fit all our facts like a charm. We respect ourselves the more that we know them.

Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.

And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.

All the tools and engines on earth are only extensions of man's limbs and senses.

Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.

In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.