Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.

An artist spends himself like the crayon in his hand, till he is all gone.

Science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge.

Men talk as if victory were something fortunate. Work is victory.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular thing, and every thing, and every man.

Men of extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, "Not unto us, not unto us." According to the faith of their times, they have built altars to Fortune, or to Destiny, or to St. Julian. Their success lay in their parallelism to the course of thought, which found in them an unobstructed channel; and the wonders of which they were the visible conductors seemed to their eye their deed.