“An eager pursuit of fortune is inconsistent with a severe devotion to truth. The heart must grow tranquil before the thought can become searching.”

Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave.

Within the sacred walls of libraries we find the best thoughts, the purest feelings, and the most exalted imaginings of our race.

Economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.

Excellence in art is largely the result of attention to minutiae, and–prayer.

Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured; but, like the sun, only for a time.

The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older, and societies better.

We should round every day of stirring action with an evening of thought. We learn nothing of our experience except we muse upon it.

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

Men, like musical instruments, seem made to be played upon.

A mother is the best friend God ever gave.

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.

Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.

It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence upon us.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

It is ever the invisible that is the object of our profoundest worship. With the lover it is not the seen but the unseen that he muses upon.

It is with a company as it is with a punch, everything depends upon the ingredients of which it in composed.

My feet are not rooted in the ground I am able to leave the familiar places I have known I am strong enough to grow.

A beautiful dance, a new breath shedding layers of myself to unearth the truth within.

We dream of roses and grow like weeds.

And now you are the butterfly finally free.

I am more stretch marks than the skin, more growth than shame.

With storms come growth.

Though I crave roots grown deep, the truth is I’m something of a wanderer.

In all the ways I have grown I wish I didn’t grow away from you.