Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

The virtue you would like to have, assume it is already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in... the part he plays.

There is no better way to exercise the imagination than the study of the law.

The "times," "the age" what is that, but a few profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the times?

It is the ignorant and childish part of mankind that is the fighting part. Idle and vacant minds want excitement

Real men don't conform to the beliefs of others, even when society has concluded on what is good and true, but maintain the integrity of their own mind.

If speculation tends thus to a terrific unity, in which all things are absorbed, action tends directly back to diversity. The first is the course or gravitation of mind; the second is the power of nature. Nature is manifold. The unity absorbs, and melts or reduces. Nature opens and creates. These two principles reappear and interpenetrate all things, all thought; the one, the many.