The sun rarely shines in history, what with the dust and confusion; and when we meet with any cheering fact which implies the presence of this luminary, we excerpt and modernize it.

A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.

But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little have been tried.

What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown.