Charles Sumner's mind had reached the calm of WATER which receives and reflects images without absorbing them; it contains nothing but itself.

All experience is an arch, to build upon.

If our minds could get hold of one abstract truth, they would be immortal so far as that truth is concerned. My trouble is to find out how we can get hold of the truth at all.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

The Virgin filled so enormous a space in the life and thought of the time that one stands now helpless before the mass of testimony to her direct action and constant presence in every moment and form of the illusion which men thought they thought their existence.

History will die if not irritated. The only service I can do to my profession is to serve as a flea.

Teachers affect eternity. There is no telling where their influence stops.