Without looking, then, to those extraordinary social influences which are now acting in precisely this direction, but only at whatis inevitably doing….

Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command..

The population of the world is a conditional population; these are not the best, but the best that could live in the existing state of soils, gases, ….

Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less..

The most Indian thing about the Indian is surely not his moccasins or his calumet, his wampum or his stone hatched, but traits of character and sagac….

Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?.

You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit..

The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling….

Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will..

The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off….

Skepticism? Yes, but a saint is a skeptic once in twenty-four hours..

If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let the church-bells ring louder, the church-organ swell i….

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory..

Character is an invincible force, which acts by presence and without means.

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous or when they are most luxurious-they are conservatives after dinner..

Every sentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France..

Every hero becomes a bore at last..

Duty grows everywhere--like children, like grass..

All I know is reception; I am and I have: but I do not get, and when I fancied I had gotten anything, I found I did not..

But there are higher secrets of culture, which are not for the apprentices, but for proficients. These are lessons only for the brave. We must know o….

Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely..