There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.

People who pin their faith to a catchword never feel the necessity of understanding anything.

The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.

People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

Our belief in education is unbounded, our reverence for it is unfaltering, our loyalty to it is unshaken by reverses. Our passionate desire, not so much to acquire it as to bestow it, is the most animated of American traits.

to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.