A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm; maintain simplicity of taste; and ... unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraightened, ardent piety.

There is nothing that a New-Englander so nearly worships as an argument.

It is a bitter thought to an avaricious spirit that by and by all these accumulations must be left behind. We can only carry away from this world the flavor of our good or evil deeds.

God wishes to exhaust all means of kindness before His hand takes hold on justice.

It was the German schoolhouse which destroyed Napoleon III. France, since then, is making monster cannon and drilling soldiers still, but she is also building schoolhouses. As long as war is possible, anything that makes better soldiers people want.

Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient.

A grindstone that had not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an ax? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man?