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“How can he remember well his ignorance – which his growth requires – who has so often to use his knowledge? We should  feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes,  and recruit him with our cordials,  before we judge him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits,  can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves or one another thus tenderly. ”

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” In any wweather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. ”

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“what should be man’s morning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture on my mind was all undusted still,and I threw them out of the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.”