“No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.”

“He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced.”

“Of all studies, the one he would rather have avoided was that of his own mind. He knew no tragedy so heartrending as introspection.”

“the problem of life was as simple as it was classic. Politics offered no difficulties, for there the moral law was a sure guide. Social perfection was also sure, because human nature worked for Good, and three instruments were all she asked — Suffrage, Common Schools, and Press. On these points doubt was forbidden. Education was divine, and man needed only a correct knowledge of facts to reach perfection: "Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts.”

“Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.”

“In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man.”

“The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.”