Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

What should I do—how should I act now, this very day . . . What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear, but something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching murmur which would soon gather distinctness.

I don't feel sure about doing good in any way now; everything seems like going on a mission to a people whose language I don't know.

Nature repairs her ravages,--repairs them with her sunshine and with human labor.

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer --committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.