“For history is a pontoon bridge. Every man walks and works at its building end, and has come as far as he has over the pontoons laid by others he may never have heard of.”

“He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.”

“An old man, going a lone highway,Came, at the evening, cold and gray,To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,Through which was flowing a sullen tide.The old man crossed in the twilight dim;The sullen stream had no fear for him;But he turned, when safe on the other side,And built a bridge to span the tide."Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,"You are wasting strength with building here;Your journey will end with the ending day;You never again will pass this way;You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide-Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"The builder lifted his old gray head:"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,"There followeth after me today,A youth, whose feet must pass this way.This chasm, that has been naught to me,To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

“The ruin of a man's teaching comes of his followers, such as having never touched the foundation he has laid, build upon it wood, hay, and stubble, fit only to be burnt. Therefore, if only to avoid his worst foes, his admirers, a man should avoid system. The more correct a system the worse will it be misunderstood; its professed admirers will take both its errors and their misconceptions of its truths, and hold them forth as its essence.”

“Man, one may say, was never in such a completely animal condition; but he has, on the other hand, never escaped from it.”

“Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life.”