Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole.

The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

We cannot let our angels go; we do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in.

I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.

The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm within which endangers him[,] not the storm without.

The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.