The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

Well, the world has a million writers. One would think, then, that good thought would be as familiar as air and water, and the gifts of each new hour would exclude the last. Yet we can count all our good books; nay, I remember any beautiful verse for twenty years.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal.

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.