"No pure delight cheers the farmer whose mind is intent on the price he shall get for his crops rather than on the joy there is in tilling them and seeing them grow and ripen: for such an one does not love the land nor his home nor any of the most beautiful and sacred things, but tends to become like the brute that eats and sleeps and dies. His thoughts are with what feeds the animal, and that which nourishes the human is hidden from him."

"The seeking for truth is better than its loveless possession."

"Break not the will of the young, but guide it to right ends."

"If science were nothing more than the best means of teaching the love of the simple fact, the indispensable need of verification, of careful and accurate observation and statement, its value would be of the highest order."

"Conversation injures more than it benefits. Men talk to escape from themselves, from sheer dread of silence. Reflection makes them uncomfortable, and they find distraction in a noise of words. They seek not the company of those who might enlighten and improve them, but that of whoever can divert and amuse them. Thus the intercourse which ought to be a chief means of education, is for the most part, the occasion of mental and moral enfeeblement."

"The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability."

"They who admire and reverence noble and heroic men are akin to them."

"A principal aim of education is to give students a taste for literature, for the books of life and power, and to accomplish this, it is necessary that their minds be held aloof from the babblement and discussions of the hour, that they may accustom themselves to take interest in the words and deeds of the greatest men, and so make themselves able and worthy to shape a larger and nobler future; but if their hours of leisure are spent over journals and reviews, they will, in later years, become the helpless victims of the newspaper habit."

"If thou wouldst be interesting, keep thy personality in the background, and be great and strong in and through thy subject."

"The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth."

"Whom little things occupy and keep busy, are little men."

"Houses and fields in which we lived and played in childhood and youth with those we loved, grow to be part of our being. The sight of them in later years touches us with mystic charm. It is like a vision from beyond the tomb or a memory of a lost Paradise. But little by little their power over us grows less and the light that falls on them becomes more like the common day. Their sacredness diminishes, their beauty fades. The young birds have flown, the old are dead, the leaves and blossoms have fallen and but the empty nest is left among the naked boughs; and looking on the desolation we feel that we have no abiding place on earth, since the home itself loses its consecration."

"We may avoid much disappointment and bitterness of soul by learning to understand how little necessary to our joy and peace are the things the multitude most desire and seek."

"If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?"

"Since the mass of mankind are too ignorant or too indolent to think seriously, if majorities are right it is by accident."

"As they are the bravest who require no witnesses to their deeds of daring, so they are the best who do right without thinking whether or not it shall be known."

"No occupation is more tiresome or depressing than that of killing time. It is the cause of lifeweariness, the punishment the soul inflicts upon itself when reduced to passiveness and servitude."

"What purifies the heart refines language."

"To love the perfection with which we do our work, or the company of those with whom we work, is the secret of learning to love the work itself."

"If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be"

"Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs."

"When pleasure is made a business, it ceases to be pleasure."

"Moral education is the development of individuality, and individuality can not be developed by formulas and mechanical processes: it is the work of the master who brings to his task a genuine and loving interest in the individual."

"The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls."

"The common man is impelled and controlled by interests; the superior, by ideas."

"They who see through the eyes of others are controlled by the will of others."

"The will—the one thing it is most important to educate—we neglect."

"To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us."

"Rules of grammar can not give us a mastery of language, rules of rhetoric can not make us eloquent, rules of conduct can not make us good."

"Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves."

"Place before thyself the ideal of perfection, not that of happiness, for by doing what makes thee wiser and better, thou shalt find the peace and joy in which happiness consists."

"Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul."

"Beauty lies not in the things we see, but in the soul."

"If thou hast sought happiness and missed it, but hast found wisdom instead, thou art fortunate."

"Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity."

"What matter that the man stands for much I cannot love—the moment he touches the realms of truth he enters my world and is my friend."

"The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible."

"There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels."

"The weak, when they have authority, surround themselves with the weak. It is, indeed, a vice of rulers that men who have exceptional ability and worth are offensive to them, since they whose greatness is due to their position find it difficult to love those whom inner power makes great."

"They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn."

"Obedience is not servility. On the contrary the servile are never rightly obedient."

"Have as little suspicion as possible and conceal that."

"Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom."

"If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself."

"We neglect the opportunities which are always present, and imagine that if those that are rare were offered, we should put them to good use. Thus we waste life waiting for what if it came we should be unprepared for."

"Make thyself perfect; others, happy."

"The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice."

"Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts."

"Faith, like love, unites; opinion, like hate, separates."

"If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation."