I am by the law of my nature a reasoner. A person who should suppose I meant by that word, an arguer, would not only not understand me, but would understand the contrary of my meaning. I can take no interest whatever in hearing or saying any thing merely as a fact - merely as having happened. It must refer to something within me before I can regard it with any curiosity or care. My mind is always energic - I don't mean energetic; I require in every thing what, for lack of another word, I may call propriety, - that is, a reason why the thing is at all, and why it is there or then rather than elsewhere or at another time.

I have known books written on Tolerance, the proper title of which would be - intolerant or intolerable books on tolerance. Should not a man who writes a book …

I take unceasing delight in Chaucer. His manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my old age. How exquisitely tender he is, and yet how perfectly fr…

Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.

Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.

For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the caus…

Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.