As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.

How novel and original must be each new mans view of the universe - for though the world is so old - and so many books have been written - each object appears wholly undescribed to our experience - each field of thought wholly unexplored - the whole world is an America - a New World.

If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

Every man should stand for a force which is perfectly irresistible.

. . . I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days. . . .