The end of man is action.

The modern majesty consists in work. What a man can do is his greatest ornament, and he always consults his dignity by doing it.

Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only carry each a future Ghost within him; but are, in very deed, Ghosts!

The graceful minuet-dance of fancy must give place to the toilsome, thorny pilgrimage of understanding. On the transition from the age of romance to that of science.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.