It is remarkable that almost all speakers and writers feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove or acknowledge the personality of God. Some Earl of Bridgewater, thinking it better late than never, has provided for it in his will. It is a sad mistake.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.

It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.

The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.