Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.
Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.
Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.
Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.
He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the plants, the waters, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments – is the rich and royal man.
A garden is like those pernicious machineries which catch a man’s coat-skirt or his hand, and draw in his arm, his leg, and his whole body to irresistible destruction.
The glory of the farmer is that, in the division of labors, it is his part to create. All trade rests at last on his primitive activity. He stands close to Nature; he obtains from the earth the bread and the meat. The food which was not, he causes to be.
The beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary.
Let us answer a book of ink with a book of flesh and blood.
O friend, never strike sail to a fear!
If you would serve your brother it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.
But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.
Philanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive officers out of saints.
Picture and sculpture are the celebrations and festivities of form.
Culture opens the sense of beauty.
Let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.
A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad.
A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of fine arts.
Any extraordinary degree of beauty in man or woman involves a moral charm.