Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

We arc the miracle of miracles, the great inscrutable mystery of God.

Fire is the best of servants, but what a master!

On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it; not in sorrows or contradictions to yield, but to push on towards the goal.

Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property of man.

Learn to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in,--a real, not an imaginary,--and which you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in.