Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations withthem, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the masterworks and chief men of each race. It is to have the sea, by voyaging; to visit the mountains, Niagara, the Nile, the desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: to see galleries, libraries, arsenals, manufactories.

In strict science, all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by mining forthe metaphysical foundation of this elysian temple? Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science, and such is the mechanical determination of our age, and so recent are our best contrivances, that use has not dulled our joy and pride in them. These arts open great gates of a future, promising to make the world plastic and to lift human life out of its beggary to a godlike ease and power.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential.