The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.

If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will -the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.

To impress the idea of power on others, they must be made in some way to feel it.

To die is only to be as we were before we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.