Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both

If [science] tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we are skating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to have found, the solid ground at the bottom of the water it is all wrong. Our business is with the thickening of this crust by extending our knowledge downward from above, as ice gets thicker while the frost lasts; we should not try to freeze upwards from the bottom.

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; as true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period.

There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas.

Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously.