There have always been a large class of thinkers who deny that the world makes any progress. They say we move in a circle; that evils are never conquered, but only change their forms.
I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln.
Neither lemonade nor anything else can prevent the inroads of old age. At present, I am stoical under its advances, and hope I shall remain so. I have but one prayer at heart; and that is, to have my faculties so far preserved that I can be useful, in some way or other, to the last.
Philosophy and the arts are but a manifestation of the intelligible ideas that move the public mind; and thus they become visible images of the nations whence they emanate.
I keep working because I am quite sure that no particle of goodness or truth is ever really lost, however appearances may be to the contrary.
A human heart can never grow old if it takes a lively interest in the pairing of birds, the reproduction of flowers, and the changing tints of autumn leaves.
Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame.
I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me.
The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.
A reformer is one who sets forth cheerfully toward sure defeat.
I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a book.
Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have.
That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.
The civilization of any country may always be measured by the degree of equality between men and women; and society will never come truly into order until there is perfect equality and copartnership between them in every department of human life.
We must not forget that all great revolutions and reformations would look mean and meagre if examined in detail as they occurred at the time.
Birds and beasts have in fact our own nature, flattened a semi-tone.
Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.
Whoso does not see that genuine life is a battle and a march has poorly read his origin and his destiny.
Even if nothing worse than wasted mental effort could be laid to the charge of theology, that alone ought to be sufficient to banish it from the earth, as one of the worst enemies of mankind.
England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.
But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later.