The fatal trait of the times is the divorce between religion and morality.
He that loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves.
Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. In the divided or social state these functions are parcelled out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst each other performs his.
I admire answers to which no answers can be made.
I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.
Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.
Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.
Language is a city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be credited with the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the coral reef which is the basis of the continent.
We infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which is a sort of monument, to which each forcible individual in a course of many hundred years has contributed a stone.
Preaching is the expression of moral sentiments applied to the duties of life.
Life too near paralyses art.
Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if he has a headache.
It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.
The basis of good manners is self-reliance.
Some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise.
The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.
Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food, and an immense quiet.
Noblesse oblige; or, superior advantages bind you to larger generosity.
We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.