The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world.

I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature.

This valley is the only place that comes up to the brag about it, and exceeds it.

The finest wits have their sediment.

America is not civil, whilst Africa is barbarous.

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.

As the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, so should you stop off your miscellaneous activity and concentrate your force on one or a few points.