If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.

There are lots of people who cannot think seriously without injuring their minds.

Learning is not easy, but hard; culture is severe. The steps to Parnassus are steep and terribly arduous.

Nothing is more injurious to the character and to the intellect than the suppression of a generous emotion.

People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching cold.

It is three and a half hours long, four characters wide and a cesspool deep.

Inspired teachers ... cannot be ordered by the gross from the factory. They must be discovered one by one, and brought home from the woods and swamps like orchids. They must be placed in a conservatory, not in a carpenter shop; and they must be honored and trusted.