At the bottom there is no perfect history; there is none such conceivable. All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet.

Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.

Eternity looks grander and kinder if time grow meaner and more hostile.

The person who cannot laugh is not only ready for treason, and deceptions, their whole life is already a treason and deception.

Nature is the time-vesture of God that reveals Him to the wise, and hides him from the foolish.

The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is the physician's aphorism, and applicable in a far wider sense than he gives it.

Lord Bacon could as easily have created the planets as he could have written Hamlet.