The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.
More than the diamond Koh-i-noor, which glitters among their crown jewels, they prize the dull pebble which is wiser than a man, whose poles turn themselves to the poles of the world, and whose axis is parallel to the axis of the world. Now, their toys are steam and galvanism.
The rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature.
There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power.
Valor consists in the power of self recovery.
All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.
Talent for talent’s sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.
Self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God.
The poisons are our principal medicines, which kill the disease and save the life.
The multitude of the sick shall not make us deny the existence of health.
Homeopathy is insignificant as an act of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time.
Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.
We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature.
Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.
When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.
Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.
Genius Borrows nobly.
Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.
Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.
Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.