Many laws as certainly make men bad, as bad men make many laws.

What is companionship where nothing that improves the intellect is communicated, and where the larger heart contracts itself to the model and dimension of the smaller?

Those who are quite satisfied sit still and do nothing; those who are not quite satisfied are the sole benefactors of the world.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

The most pernicious of absurdities is that weak, blind, stupid faith is better than the constant practice of every human virtue.

As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them ... so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsafe and unsatisfactory.

The sublime is contained in a grain of dust.