The sublime is contained in a grain of dust.

We talk on principal, but act on motivation.

Moroseness is the evening of turbulence.

It has been my fortune to love in general those men most who have thought most differently from me, on subjects wherein others pardon no discordance. I think I have no more right to be angry with a man, whose reason has followed up a process different from what mine has, and is satisfied with the result, than with one who has gone to Venice while I am at Siena, and who writes to me that he likes the place.

States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

Belief in a future life is the appetite of reason.