The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.
A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.
We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.
I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.
A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.
Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.
Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.
The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.
I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.
If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.
That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
Most people dread finding out when they come to die that they have never really lived.
Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.
You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God.
We hate the kindness which we understand.
Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance.
Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower into a truth.