God puts the excess of hope in one man, in order that it may be a medicine to the man who is despondent.

All human affairs follow nature's great analogue, the growth of vegetation. There are three periods of growth in every plant. The first, and slowest, is the invisible growth by the root; the second and much accelerated is the visible growth by the stem; but when root and stem have gathered their forces, there comes the third period, in which the plant quickly flashes into blossom and rushes into fruit.

Many men build as cathedrals are built-the part nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete.

There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans ... and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast.

Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.

Grim care, moroseness, anxiety-all this rust of life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. Mirth is God's medicine.

Some men will not shave on Sunday, and yet they spend all the week in shaving their fellow-men; and many folks think it very wicked to black their boots on Sunday morning, yet they do not hesitate to black their neighbor's reputation on week-days.