An easy thing, O Power Divine, To thank thee for these gifts of Thine, For summer's sunshine, winter's snow, For hearts that kindle thoughts that glow.

If I were to choose among all gifts and qualities that which, on the whole, makes life pleasantest, I should select the love of children. No circumstance can render this world wholly a solitude to one who has this possession

It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.

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.

How much that the world calls selfishness is only generosity with narrow walls,--a too exclusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury, or make one's children rich.

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

Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.