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1. One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.
2. Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.
3. Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to better himself.
4. Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.
5. The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
6. Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost.
7. How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
8. Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.
9. The great hope of society is in individual character.
10. Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.
11. It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind’s dignity.
12. Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.
13. Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
14. The world is governed by opinion.
15. God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth.
16. Error is discipline through which we advance.
17. The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought.
18. All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene.
19. It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.
20. No one should part with their individuality and become that of another.