“He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.”

“When a person inflates his own importance, he does not see his own sins; and his sins get bigger right along with him.”

“But greatly his most important culture he had gathered — and this, too, by his own endeavors — from the better part of the district, the religious men; to whom, as to the most excellent, his own nature gradually attached and attracted him. He was religious with the consent of his whole faculties. Without religion he would have been nothing.”

“The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.”

“He who does not improve his temper together with his understanding, is not much the better for it.”

“Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist them.”

“A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.”

“Of a rich man who was niggardly he said, "That man does not own his estate, but his estate owns him."”

“He kept growing. He thought it was very important to keep growing all your life.”

“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.”