Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature; for never is life so low or so little as when occupied with the present.

Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude.

Many love music but for music's sake, Many because her touches can awake Thoughts that repose within the breast half-dead, And rise to follow where she loves to lead. What various feelings come from days gone by! What tears from far-off sources dim the eye! Few, when light fingers with sweet voices play, And melodies swell, pause, and melt away, Mind how at every touch, at every tone, A spark of life hath glistened and hath gone.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.

Immoderate power, like other intemperance, leaves the progeny weaker and weaker, until nature as in compassion covers it with her mantle and it is seen no more.