The world is content with setting right the surface of things.

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another, I have my mission ... He has not created me for naught ... If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.

There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor.

Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes. One alone is true to us; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our need.

An academical system without the personal influence of teachers on pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an icebound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else.

Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not... We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.