There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.

A frightful dialect for the stupid, the pedant and dullard sort.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

To the vulgar eye, few things are wonderful that are not distant

We call that fire of the black thunder-cloud "electricity," and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk: but what is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it?