“Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts.”

“the problem of life was as simple as it was classic. Politics offered no difficulties, for there the moral law was a sure guide. Social perfection was also sure, because human nature worked for Good, and three instruments were all she asked — Suffrage, Common Schools, and Press. On these points doubt was forbidden. Education was divine, and man needed only a correct knowledge of facts to reach perfection: "Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts.”

“Ah! What would the world be to usIf the children were no more?We should dread the desert behind usWorse than the dark before.”

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight,but they, while their companions slept,were toiling upward in the night.”

“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”

“Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems,And all the rest are dead.”

“Thus thought I, as by night I readOf the great army of the dead,The trenches cold and damp,The starved and frozen camp,--The wounded from the battle-plain,In dreary hospitals of pain,The cheerless corridors,The cold and stony floors.Lo! in that house of miseryA lady with a lamp I seePass through the glimmering gloomAnd flit from room to room.And slow, as in a dream of bliss,The speechless sufferer turns to kissHer shadow, as it fallsUpon the darkening walls.”