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

A life of mere pleasure! A little while, in the spring-time of the senses, in the sunshine of prosperity, in the jubilee of health, it may seem well enough. But how insufficient, how mean, how terrible when age comes, and sorrow, and death! A life of pleasure! What does it look like when these great changes beat against it--when the realities of eternity stream in? It looks like the fragments of a feast, when the sun shines upon the withered garlands, and the tinsel, and the overturned tables, and the dead lees of wine.

If you should take the human heart and listen to it, it would be like listening to a sea-shell; you would hear in it the hollow murmur of the infinite ocean to which it belongs, from which it draws its profoundest inspiration, and for which it yearns.

A patient, humble temper gathers blessings that are marred by the peevish and overlooked by the aspiring.

Neutral men are the devil's allies.

As for environments, the kingliest being ever born in the flesh lay in a manger.

It is difficult to believe that a true gentleman will ever become a gamester, a libertine, or a sot.