O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regulation to all my thoughts and to all my movements.

Regardless of how large, your vision is too small.

Guard against that vanity which courts a compliment, or is fed by it.

With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness.

The human mind feels restless and dissatisfied under the anxieties of ignorance. It longs for the repose of conviction; and to gain this repose it will often rather precipitate its conclusions than wait for the tardy lights of observation and experiment. There is such a thing, too, as the love of simplicity and system,--a prejudice of the understanding which disposes it to include all the phenomena of nature under a few sweeping generalities,--an indolence which loves to repose on the beauties of a theory rather than encounter the fatiguing detail of its evidences.

It is more blessed to give than to receive, and therefore less blessed to receive than to give.

Thousands of men breathe, move, and live; pass off the stage of life and are heard of no more. Why? They did not a particle of good in the world; and none were blest by them, none could point to them as the instrument of their redemption; not a line they wrote, not a word they spoke, could be recalled, and so they perished--their light went out in darkness, and they were not remembered more than the insects of yesterday. Will you thus live and die, O man immortal? Live for something.