Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.

This whole earth in which we inhabit is but a point is space.

The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindu, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich inward.

The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it be an uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planet's year is completed, it will be found to be central.

The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

What a pity if we do not live this short time according to the laws of the long time,--the eternal laws!