Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.

In youth, it is common to measure right and wrong by the opinion of the world, and in age, to act without any measure but interest, and to lose shame without substituting virtue.

Peevishness may be considered the canker of life, that destroys its vigor and checks its improvement; that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what it cannot consume.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near to laudable that they have been often praised and are always pardoned.