God gave you that gifted tongue of yours, and set it between your teeth, to make known your true meaning to us, not to be rattled like a muffin man’s bell.
And yet without labour there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable.
There is endless merit in a man’s knowing when to have done.
France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams.
All human souls, never so bedarkened, love light; light once kindled spreads till all is luminous.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do that with all thy might and leave the issues calmly to God.
Close thy Byron ; open thy Goethe .
The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable.
In the poorest cottage are Books: is one Book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light, and nourishment, and an interpreting response to whatever is Deepest in him.
The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world.
A Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up.
There is often more spiritual force in a proverb than in whole philosophical systems.
Man is emphatically a proselytizing creature.
Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but maunders and mumbles.
We have not the love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness.
A man must indeed be a hero to appear such in the eyes of his valet.
Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul.
History: A distillation of rumor.
Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.
Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows.