The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age.

The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.

The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against disbelief

Nothing ever happens but once in all this world. What I do now I do once for all. It is over and gone, with all its eternity of solemn meaning.

It is now almost my sole rule of life to clear myself of cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus shirts.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.