Life, in all ranks and situations, is an outward occupation, an actual and active work.

No matter how good or great a man may be, there is yet a better and a greater man within him.

Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.

Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.

Government, religion, property, books, are nothing but the scaffolding to build men. Earth holds up to her master no fruit like the finished man.

If it were not somewhat fanciful to suppose that every human excellence is presented, as it were, in one kind of being, we might believe that the whole treasure of morality and order is enshrined in the female character.

Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.