He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born.

If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality.

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.

The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-travelled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.

The foul slime stands for the sloth and vice of man, the decay of humanity; the fragrant flower that springs from it, for the purity and courage which are immortal.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

We are more anxious to speak than to be heard.