I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me

Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.

A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them

Men of gravity are intellectual stammerers, whose thoughts move slowly.

I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character.

It is easier taking the beaten path than making our way over bogs and precipices. The great difficulty in philosophy is to come to every question with a mind fresh and unshackled by former theories, though strengthened by exercise and information.