All work of man is as the swimmer's: a vast ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it will keep its word.

Youth is to all the glad season of life; but often only by what it hopes, not by what it attains, or what it escapes.

Is man’s civilization only a wrappage, through which the savage nature of him can still burst, infernal as ever?

Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: "Do the duty which lies nearest to thee," which thou know to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

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

Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.

We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it.