Mistakes and errors are the discipline through which we advance.

Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.

No man receives the full culture of a man in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and there is no condition of life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries this is the cheapest, and the most at hand, and most important to those conditions where coarse labor tends to give grossness to the mind.

No punishment is so terrible as prosperous guilt.

Life has a higher end, than to be amused

A clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite another kind, and far higher than accumulations of brick and granite and plaster and stucco, however cunningly put together.

Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie.