The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.

The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.

Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,--the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.

The richest gifts we can bestow are the least marketable. We hate the kindness which we understand.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.