We live in a system of approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in nature, not domesticated.
We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean and beg day and night continually.
God had infinite time to give us.... He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings, and, with each, therefore, a new idea, new inventions, and new applications.
Every individual man has a bias which he must obey, and...it is only as he feels and obeys this that he rightly develops and attains his legitimate power in the world. It is his magnetic needle, which points always in one direction to his proper path.... He is never happy nor strong until he finds it, keeps it.
I like to have a person's knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a person who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.