We have no adequate conception of the perfection of the ancient tragic dance. The pleasure which the greeks received from it had for its basis difference; & the more unfit the vehicle, the more lively was the curiosity & intense the delights at seeing the difficulty overcome.

An idea, in the highest sense of that word, cannot be conveyed but by a symbol.

A nation to be great ought to be compressed in its increment by nations more civilized than itself.

How deep a wound to morals and social purity has that accursed article of the celibacy of the clergy been! Even the best and most enlightened men in Romanist countries attach a notion of impurity to the marriage of a clergyman. And can such a feeling be without its effect on the estimation of the wedded life in general? Impossible! and the morals of both sexes in Spain, Italy, France, and. prove it abundantly.

Fear gives sudden instincts of skill.

A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive.

The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.