The unstable estimates of men crowd to him whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon.

Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.

There are many faculties in man, each of which takes its turn of activity, and that faculty which is paramount in any period and exerts itself through the strongest nation, determines the civility of that age: and each age thinks its own the perfection of reason.

Proverbs, words, and grammar inflections convey the public sense with more purity and precision, than the wisest individual.

Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to deed. A skillful man reads his dreams for his self-knowledge; yet not the details, but the quality. What part does he play in them - a cheerful, manly part, or a poor, drivelling part? However monstrous and grotesque their apparitions, they have a substantial truth.

All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.

[A]s if life were a thunder-storm wherein you can see by a flash the horizon, and then cannot see your hand.