Books are a triviality. Life alone is great.

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.

All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught.

For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?

Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Democracy means despair of finding any heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.