Books are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a book before me.

Complete self-devotion is woman's part.

Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle.

There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.

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

No man in the world acts up to his own standard of right.