I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

We cannot walk through life on mountain peaks.

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.

A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.

A man’s life may stagnate as literally as water may stagnate, and just as motion and direction are the remedy for one, so purpose and activity are the remedy for the other.

Some men are like nails, very easily drawn; others however are more like rivets never drawn at all.

How many thorns of human nature - hard, sharp, lifeless protuberances that tear and wound us, narrow prejudices, bristling conceits that repel and disgust us - are arrested developments, calcified tendencies, buds of promise that should have lifted a branch up into the sunny day with fruit; and flowers to delight the heart of men, but now all grown hard, petrified, for want of culture and a congenial soil and climate.