Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.

Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free.

There's a fount about to stream, There's a light about to beam, There's a warmth about to glow, There's a flower about to blow There's a midnight blackness changing Into gray Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later.

Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome.

Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.

If happy I and wretched he, Perhaps the king would change with me.

An arrow may fly through the air and leave no trace but an ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent.

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen Aid it, hopes of honest men!

Water is the mother of the vine, the nurse and fountain of fecundity, the adorner and refresher of the world.

But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run And the truth shall ever come uppermost, And justice shall be done.

Men of thought and men of action, clear the Way!

Old Tubal Cain was a man of might In the days when earth was young.

Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind and, by impelling us to seek remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and the ignorance of the future.

The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. . . No man is so wise but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and no society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Much as the sage may affect to despise the opinion of the world, there are few who would not rather expose their lives a hundred times than be condemned to live on, in society, but not of it - a by-word of reproach to all who know their history, and a mark for scorn to point his finger at.