In the history of the individual is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party to his present estate.

The great man, that is, the man most imbued with the spirit of the time, is the impressionable man.

I didn't find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.

We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.

I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to go to church no more.