“I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians.”

“Now-a-days, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty cap.”

“The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable.”

“There is no life but this.”

“Being is the great explainer.”

“Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”

“What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers?”

“Keep pace with the drummer you hear, however measured or far away.”

“lET HIM MARCH TO THE MUSIC HE HEARS”

“This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.”

“I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”

“It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.”

“There is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected.”

“It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.”

“Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.”

“How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?”

“I am a parcel of vain strivings tied by a chance bond together.”

“Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it.”

“We commonly do not remember that it is … always the first person that is speaking.”

“Our life is frittered away by detail.”

“The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated.”

“Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.”

“We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.”

“The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.”