Every person has his or her own vocation-talent is the call.

We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature.

There is more in every person's soul than we think.

Slavery is no scholar, no improver; it does not love the whistle of the railroad; it does not love the newspaper, the mailbag, a college, a book or a preacher who has the absurd whim of saying what he thinks; it does not increase the white population; it does not improve the soil; everything goes to decay.