There needs not a great soul to make a hero; there needs a god-created soul which will be true to its origin; that will be a great soul!

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.

He who could foresee affairs three days in advance would be rich for thousands of years.

It is not to taste sweet things; but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's heaven as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower considerations.

That there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

Whose school-hours are all the days and nights of our existence.