We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.

To believe in luck, if it were not a solecism so to use the word believe, is skepticism.

A part of Fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.

Though we love goodness and not stealing, yet also we love freedom and not preaching.

Wild liberty breeds iron conscience; natures with great impulses have great resources, and return from far.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

If a man carefully examine his thoughts he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead. Such a creature is probably immortal.

God may forgive sins, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

Genius seems to consist merely in trueness of sight, in using such words as show that the man was an eye-witness, and not a repeater of what was told.