Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.

The test of an author is not to be found merely in the number of his phrases that pass current in the corner of newspapers... but in the number of passages that have really taken root in younger minds.

The coarsest father gains a new impulse to labor from the moment of his baby's birth; he scarcely sees it when awake, and yet it is with him all the time. Every stroke he strikes is for his child. New social aims, new moral motives, come vaguely up to him.

Do not waste a minute - not a second - in trying to demonstrate to others the merits of your performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it.

Lavish thousands of dollars on your baby clothes, and after all the child is prettiest when every garment is laid aside. That becoming nakedness, at least, may adorn the chubby darling of the poorest home.

But days even earlier than these, in April, have a charm, — even days that seem raw and rainy, when the sky is dull and a bequest of March - wind lingers, chasing the squirrel from the tree and the children from the meadows. There is a fascination in walking through these bare early woods, – there is such a pause of preparation, winter's work is so cleanly and thoroughly done. Everything is taken down and put away.