Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome.

Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they can't hurt you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble.

Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling; not a mean and groveling thing that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny.

The errors of former times are recorded for our instruction in order that we may avoid their repition.

I have known ninety-five of the world's great men in my time, and of these eighty-seven were followers of the Bible.

Swimming for his life, a man does not see much of the country through which the river winds.

It is difficult to see anything but infatuation in the destructive temperament which leads to the action ... that each of us is to rejoice that our several units are to be distinguished at death into countless millions of organisms; for such, it seems, is the latest revelation delivered from the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi.