Whatever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes.

Egotism is a kind of buckram that gives momentary strength and concentration to men, and seems to be much used in Nature for fabrics in which local and spasmodic energy is required.

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Be lord of a day, through wisdom and justice, and you can put up your history books.

A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.

The plays of children are nonsense, but very educative nonsense. So it is with the largest and solemnest things, with commerce, government, church, marriage, and so with the history of every man's bread, and the ways by which he is to come by it.

No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.