The disciples found angels at the grave of Him they loved; and we should always find them too, but that our eyes are too full of tears for seeing.
Self-government by the whole people is the teleologic idea. The republican form of government is the noblest and the best, as it is the latest.
It is not in the nature of true greatness to be exclusive and arrogant.
Our government is built upon the vote. But votes that are purchasable are quicksands, and a government built on them stands upon corruption and revolution.
God’s men are better than the devil’s men, and they ought to act as though they thought they were.
When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder.
God never made anything else so beautiful as man.
Human life is God’s outer church. Its needs and urgencies are priests and pastors.
A man’s true estate of power and riches is to be in himself; not in his dwelling or position or external relations, but in his own essential character.
Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it.
The bibliophile is the master of his books, the bibliomaniac their slave.
Some people are so dry that you might soak them in a joke for a month and it would not get through their skins.
Nothing is orderly till man takes hold of it. Everything in creation lies around loose.
A dull ax never loves grindstones.
It is a very good world for the purposes for which it was built; and that is all anything is good for.
The indolent mind is not empty, but full of vermin.
Some men are like pyramids, which are very broad where they touch the ground, but grow narrow as they reach the sky.
Women are a new race, recreated since the world received Christianity.
The cynic puts all human actions into two classes – openly bad and secretly bad.
I read for three things; first, to know what the world has done the last twenty-four hours, and is about to do today; second, for the knowledge that I specially want in my work; and third, for what will bring my mind into a proper mood.