Though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and when I hear a young man spoken of as giving promise of great genius, the first question I ask about him always is, Does he work?

Many thoughts are so dependent upon the language in which they are clothed that they would lose half their beauty if otherwise expressed.

The enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observations, sharpens sensations, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous.

Pleasure comes through toil, and not by self indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life is a happy one.

Without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained.

Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men.

There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder.