Friendship is a plant that loves the sun, thrives ill under clouds.
Genius – the free and harmonious play of all the faculties of a human being.
Fullness is always quiet; agitation will answer for empty vessels only.
A good book is fruitful of other books; it perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers.
My favorite books have a personality and complexion as distinctly drawn as if the author’s portrait were framed into the paragraphs and smiled upon me as I read his illustrated pages.
One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books, though preparation is necessary to profitable reading; and the less reading is better than more; – book-struck men are of all readers least wise, however knowing or learned.
The eyes have a property in things and territories not named in any title-deeds, and are the owners of our choicest possessions.
The head best leaves to the heart what the heart alone divines.
Friends are the leaders of the bosom, being more ourselves than we are, and we complement our affections in theirs.
Right is the royal ruler alone; and he who rules with least restraint comes nearest to empire.
The best teachers don’t allow their own personal views to influence their teaching.
Like birds of passage, the instincts drift the soul adventurously beyond the horizon of sensible things, as if intent on convoying it to the mother country from whence it had flown.
If the ancients left us ideas, to our credit be it spoken that we moderns are building houses for them – structures which neither Plato nor Archimedes had dreamed possible.
Traveling is no fool’s errand to him who carries his eyes and itinerary along with him.
The richest minds need not large libraries.
Who knows, the mind has the key to all things besides.
Of gifts, there seems none more becoming to offer a friend than a beautiful book.
One’s outlook is a part of his virtue.
The traveled mind is the catholic mind educated from exclusiveness and egotism.
Opposition strengthens the manly will.