Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Most of us who turn to any subject we love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love.

In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.

There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that-to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail.

I care only to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all religious doctrine from the beginning till now.

Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us; there have been many circulation of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.