The graceful minuet-dance of fancy must give place to the toilsome, thorny pilgrimage of understanding. On the transition from the age of romance to that of science.

I call that [Book of Job], apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with pen.

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

I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind.

If Hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero?

Thought, true labor of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the daughter of Pain?