It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with the superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are true levellers. They give to all, who faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race.

One of the tremendous evils of the world, is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands.

All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene

Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.

One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.

Precept is instruction written in the sand; the tide flows over it and the record is gone; example is graven on the rock, and the lesson is not soon lost.