There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby.

One of the prevailing sources of misery and crime is in the generally accepted assumption, that because things have been wrong a long time, it is impossible they will ever be right.

Like other beautiful things in this world, its end (that of a shaft) is to be beautiful; and, in proportion to its beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers.

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

We are only advancing in life, whose hearts are getting softer, our blood warmer, our brains quicker, and our spirits entering into living peace.

That admiration of the 'neat but not gaudy,' which is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea green.