It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern.

The perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which men seem incapable, but which is sometimes found in women.

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.

No particular man is necessary to the state. We may depend on it that, if we provide the country with popular institutions, those institutions will provide it with great men.

We must succumb to the general influence of the times. No man can be of the tenth century, if he would; be must be a man of the nineteenth century.