At the bottom there is no perfect history; there is none such conceivable. All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet.

God Almighty never created a man half as wise as he looks.

Speech that leads not to action, still more that hinders it, is a nuisance on the earth.

The modern majesty consists in work. What a man can do is his greatest ornament, and he always consults his dignity by doing it.

A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the almighty have lived by and died by?

Teaching school is but another word for sure and not very slow destruction.

Acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.