Nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; the best of them in doubt and misery; the worst in reckless defiance; the plurality, in plodding hesitation, doing, as well as they can, what practical work lies ready to their hands.

No amount of pay ever made a good soldier, a good teacher, a good artist, or a good workman.

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.

The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition.

Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

It is advisable that a person know at least three things, where they are, where they are going, and what they had best do under the circumstances.

Such help as we can give to each other in this world is a debt to each other; and the man who perceives a superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and neither confesses nor assists it, is not merely the withholder of kindness, but the committer of injury.