We legislate against forestalling and monopoly; we would have a common granary for the poor; but the selfishness which hoards thecorn for high prices, is the preventative of famine; and the law of self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation can be.

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their contemporaries!

In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us.

The religions are obsolete when the reforms do not proceed from them.

No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love.

In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass.