It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver.

Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.

It is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we beginto keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.

Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists and cöoperates, and therefore it is not in vain. But alas! each relaxing and desperation is an instinct too. To be active, well, happy, implies courage. To be ready to fight in a duel or a battle implies desperation, or that you hold your life cheap.

All the past is here, present to be tried; let it approve itself if it can.

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.