Poverty, we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made barriers, which if they do mournfully gall and hamper, do at least prescribe for him, and force on him, a sort of course and goal; a safe and beaten, though a circuitous, course. A great part of his guidance is secure against fatal error, is withdrawn from his control. The rich, again, has his whole life to guide, without goal or barrier, save of his own choosing, and, tempted, is too likely to guide it ill.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a Life-purpose... Get your happiness out of your work or you will never know what real happiness is... Even in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work!

Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form is a wrapping of traditions, hearsay's, and mere words.

History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the first distinct product of man's spiritual nature, his earliest expression of what may be called thought.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance.

Man is, and was always, a block-head and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider.