Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

The regular course of studies, the years of academical and professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School.

Heaven walks among us ordinarily muffled in such triple or tenfold disguises that the wisest are deceived and no one suspects the days to be gods.

What matters most is not what is behind us or before us, but what is within us.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Must we always talk for victory, and never once for truth, for comfort, and joy?

By going one step further back in thought, discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still higher vision.