You take a weakness and start making it stronger.. You don't have to build your strengths - that you already possess... It is your weakness that needs the exercise

There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.

There is a property in the horizon which no man has, but he whose eyes can integrate all the parts,--that is, the poet.

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

I may say it of our preposterous use of books,--He knew not what to do, and so he read.

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.