Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights..

If any one of us has had an ambition higher than that of making money; a motive better than that of expediency; a faith warmer than that of reasoning….

The Virgin filled so enormous a space in the life and thought of the time that one stands now helpless before the mass of testimony to her direct act….

The sensation of seeing extremely fine women, with superb forms, perfectly unconscious of undress, and yet evidently aware of their beauty and dignit….

Nothing is more tiresome than a superannuated pedagogue..

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him..

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts..

From earliest childhood the boy was accustomed to feel that, for him, life was double. Winter and summer, town and country, law and liberty, were hos….

I am not prepared to deny or assert any proposition which concerns myself; but certainly this solitary struggle with platitudinous atoms, called men ….

The Indian Summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone, but never hustled..

If it were worth while to argue a paradox, one might maintain that nature regards the female as the essential, the male as the superfluity of her wor….

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops..

Church and State, Soul and Body, God and Man, are all one at Mont Saint Michel, and the business of all is to fight, each in his own way, or to stand….

Women have, commonly, a very positive moral sense; that which they will, is right; that which they reject, is wrong; and their will, in most cases, e….

It is always good men who do the most harm in the world..

Whenever a man reaches the top of the political ladder, his enemies unite to pull him down. His friends become critical and exacting..

Politics are a very unsatisfactory game..

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central ….

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit..

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces..

A certain secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for democracy….