They are the guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.
They act as if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement of mankind is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any improvement in particular.
Evolution is not a force but a process. Not a cause but a law.
A great interpreter of life ought not himself to need interpretation.
You cannot demonstrate an emotion or prove an aspiration.
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.
Even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in the broad, intelligent, and spacious way.
A proverb is good sense brought to a point.
Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.
No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character.
The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without and to depart.