What is really desired, under the name of riches, is essentially, power over men ... this power ... is in direct proportion to the poverty of the men over whom it is exercised, and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are as rich as ourselves.

It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man.

It is better to be nobly remembered than nobly born.

Unless we perform divine service with every willing act of our life, we never perform it at all.

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

In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.

If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it; if possible, try for it.