It is better to be a self-made man,--filled up according to God's original pattern,--than to be half a man, made after some other man's pattern.

Preceptive wisdom that has not been vivified by life has in itself no affinity for life.

Every man's powers have relation to some kind of work; and whenever he finds that kind of work which he can do best--that to which his powers are best adapted--he finds that which will give him the best development, and that by which he can best build up, or make, his manhood.

Nature is the master of talents; genius is the master of nature.

I account the office of benefactor, or almoner, to which God appoints all those whom he has favored with wealth, one of the most honorable and delightful in the world. He never institutes a channel for the passage of His bounties that those bounties do not enrich and beautify.

The love that gushes for all is the real elixir of life - the fountain of bodily longevity. It is the lack of this that always produces the feeling of age.

The faculties of our souls differ as widely as the features of our faces and the forms of our frames.