Not a ray is dimmed, not an atom worn; nature's oldest force is as good as new.

I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.

When the night is darkest, the stars come out.

Tragedy is in the eye of the observer, and not in the heart of the sufferer.

Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever.