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

Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning.

That we have but little faith is not sad, but that we have little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned.

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

Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seemed to me that John Brown was the only one who had not died.