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Although our intellect always feels itself urged towards clearness and certainty, still our mind often feels itself attracted by uncertainty.

Theory must also take into account the human element; it must accord a place to courage, to boldness, even to rashness.

There are persons who possess the keenest perception for the most difficult problems, who are also not fearful of responsibility, and yet in cases of difficulty cannot come to a resolution.

Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult.

Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased.

War is the province of uncertainty: three-fourths of those things upon which action in War must be calculated, are hidden more or less in the clouds of great uncertainty.

Resolution is an act of courage in single instances, and if it becomes a characteristic trait, it is a habit of the mind.

Mere intelligence is still not courage, for we often see the cleverest people devoid of resolution.

War is the province of danger, and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior.

By the aid of the Mechanical Notation, the Analytical Engine became a reality: for it became susceptible of demonstration.

Thus the Analytical Engine will possess a library of its own. Every set of cards once made will at any future time reproduce the calculations for which it was first arranged.

The whole of arithmetic now appeared within the grasp of mechanism. A vague glimpse even of an Analytical Engine at length opened out, and I pursued with enthusiasm the shadowy vision.

Moreover, the many dead trunks that stand like skeletons, never fail to give to these primeval woods a character of solemnity, absent in those of countries long civilized.

Sitting down on a block of granite, it was delightful to watch the various insects and birds as they flew past.

Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest.

This west coast makes me remember with pleasure the free, unbounded plains of Patagonia; yet, with the true spirit of contradiction, I cannot forget how sublime is the silence of the forest.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be

The question is whether a statute authorizing such proceedings in restraint of publication is consistent with the conception of the liberty of the press as historically conceived and guaranteed.

The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any the less necessary the immunity of the press from previous restraint in dealing with offical misconduct.

Every man hath two birth-days: two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration.

Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal.

In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel.

Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings death into my mind.

My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you.

Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,--I stood ramparted about with so many healthy friends.