Man's life is a progress, not a station.

Every artist was first an amateur.

The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, "the whole is greater than its part;" "reaction is equal to action;" "the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by time;" and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well as physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined to technical use.

An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary.

Let no one honour me with tears, or bury me with lamentation. Why? Because I fly hither and thither, living in the mouths of me.

The world we live in is but thickened light.

A cultivated man, wise to know and bold to perform, is the end to which nature works.