Is there anything so wretched as to look at a man of fine abilities doing nothing?

Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him; if he is a walking university.

Our life is what we make it. An insignificant game or a noble trial; a dream or a reality; a play of the senses worn out in selfish use, and flying "swifter than a weaver's shuttle," or an ascension of the soul, by daily duties and unfaltering faith, to more spiritual relations and to loftier toils.

Truth is new, as well as old. It has new forms; and where you may find a new statement, an earnest statement, you may conclude that by the law of progress it is more likely to be a correct statement than that which has been repeated for ages by the lips of tradition.

Swift calls discretion low prudence; it is high prudence, and one of the most important elements entering into either social or political life.

Many a man who might walk over burning ploughshares into heaven stumbles from the path because there is gravel in his shoes.

No piled-up wealth, no social station, no throne, reaches as high as that spiritual plane upon which every human being stands by virtue of his humanity.