Whenever the pulpit is usurped by a formalist, then is the worshipper defrauded and disconsolate.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is what it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in.

The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows.

An answer in words is delusive; it is really no answer to the questions you ask.

No man has a right perception of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be its martyr.