The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.

It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is needed; it is itself a reform.

Who cares what a man's style is, so it is intelligible,--as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with; and it is not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for it. It is something for use, and not to look at. The question for us is, not whether Pope had a fine style, wrote with a peacock's feather, but whether he uttered useful thoughts.

It is true, these Roman Catholics, priests and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink ourselves even as oxen.

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.