The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.... He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.

Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.

Truth illuminates and gives joy; and it is by the bond of joy, not of pleasure, that men's spirits are indissolubly held.

Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling

Six years-six little years-six drops of time.

If an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism, if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend upon it, the truth is not found in such a writer.