Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.

The State is not in itself an end, but is only a means towards human development.

Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.

It is continued temperance which sustains the body for the longest period of time, and which most surely preserves it free from sickness.

Natural objects themselves, even when they make no claim to beauty, excite the feelings, and occupy the imagination. Nature pleases, attracts, delights, merely because it is nature. We recognize in it an Infinite Power.

How a person masters his or her fate is more important than what that fate is.

Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation.