Observation more than books and experience more than persons, are the prime educators.

A good book is fruitful of other books; it perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers.

Conversation is an abandonment to ideas, a surrender to persons.

Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly, nor need we but love them devotedly to become members of an immortal fraternity, superior to accident or change.

First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others.

Labor humanizes, exalts.

Nor do we accept, as genuine the person not characterized by this blushing bashfulness, this youthfulness of heart, this sensibility to the sentiment of suavity and self-respect. Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds. None are truly great without this ornament.