Over our manhood bend the skies; Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite And to our age’s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind. Nor think I that God's world would fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less. Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change, is fitted to the hour; Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. I do not fear to follow out the truth.

Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.

The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases.

Practical application is the only mordant which will set things in the memory. Study without it is gymnastics, and not work, which alone will get intellectual bread.

Though old the thought and oft exprest, Tis his at last who says it best.

The better part of every man's education is that which he gives himself.