Every thing admonishes us how needlessly long life is.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success. It is the ardor of the assailant that makes the vigor of the defendant.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.

As long as our people quote English standards they dwarf their own proportions.

The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes. Whilst we are waiting, we beguile the time with jokes, with sleep, with eating, and with crimes.

Each man, if he attempts to join himself to others, is on all sides cramped and diminished of his proportion; and the stricter theunion, the smaller and the more pitiful he is. But leave him alone, to recognize in every hour and place the secret soul, he will go up and down doing the works of a true member, and, to the astonishment of all, the work will be done with concert, though no man spoke.