-
Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to follow her to the stars.
-
Felicity, not fluency of language, is a merit.
-
Character is the spiritual body of the person, and represents the individualization of vital experience, the conversion of unconscious things into self-conscious men.
-
Lord Chatham and Napoleon were ns much actors as Garrick or Talma. Now, an imposing air should always be taken as evidence of imposition. Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.
-
The greatness of action includes immoral as well as moral greatness--Cortes and Napoleon, as well as Luther and Washington.
-
Everybody knows that fanaticism is religion caricatured; bears, indeed, about the same relation to it that a monkey bears to a man; yet, with many, contempt of fanaticism is received as a sure sign of hostility to religion.