Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.

It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.

Go into one of our cool churches, and begin to count the words that might be spared, and in most places the entire sermon will go.

When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.

Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called "silent poetry," and poetry "speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.

The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.

Every man who would do anything well, must come to it from a higher ground.