A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.

Whatever appeals to the imagination, by transcending the ordinary limits of human ability, wonderfully encourages and liberates us.

The only method to possess a buddy is always to be one.

That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

Examples are cited by soldiers, of men who have seen the cannon pointed, and the fire given to it, and who have stepped aside from he path of the ball. The terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlour and the cabin.