Every fact is impure, but every fact contains in it the juices of life. Every fact is a clod, from which may grow an amaranth or a palm.

Man is not made for society, but society is made for man. No institution can be good which does not tend to improve the individual.

Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain.

The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it.

Truth is the nursing mother of genius.

A man who means to think and write a great deal must, after six and twenty, learn to read with his fingers.

Certainly I do not wish that instead of these masters I had read baby books, written down to children, and with such ignorant dullness that they blunt the sense and corrupt the tastes of the still plastic human being. But I do wish that I had read no books at all till later - that I had lived with toys, and played in the open air. Children should not cull the fruits of reflection and observation early, but expand in the sun, and let thoughts come to them. They should not through books antedate their actual experiences.