“There is no wealth but life.”

“What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant ''well-being,'' and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.”

“But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for — life, good for all men, as for yourselves; if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace; — then, and so sanctifying wealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily labours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build, well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better; temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal. ”

“The best thing in life aren't things.”

“Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life.”

“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”

“Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.”