The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

What school, college, or lecture bring men depends on what men bring to carry it home in.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. The most exact calculator has noprescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next moment. I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know.

Our thinking is a pious reception.

Nature is a rag-merchant, who works up every shred and ort and end into new creations; like a good chemist, whom I found, the other day, in his laboratory, converting his old shirts into pure white sugar.