You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

A mind does not receive truth as a chest receives jewels that are put into it, but as the stomach takes up food into the system. It is no longer food, but flesh, and is assimilated. The appetite and the power of digestion measure our right to knowledge. He has it who can use it. As soon as our accumulation overruns our invention or power to use, the evils of intellectual gluttony begin,— congestion of the brain, apoplexy and strangulation.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment.

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.