My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image.

Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.

Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.

Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.

Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.

As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.