The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.

Let not the tie be mercenary, though the service is measured in money. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.

We are sure that, though we know not how, necessity does comport with liberty, the individual with the world, my polarity with thespirit of the times. The riddle of the age has for each a private solution.

The first thing a great person does is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.

Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are you? Unhand me: I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each other's, because we are more our own?

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.