"'Tis the mind that makes the body rich."—Taming of the Shrew.
"Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality."—Wordsworth.
"Neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me that a scholar is the favorite of heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men."—Emerson.
"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold."—Solomon.
V
The Mind; and the Duty of Right Thinking[ToC]
With fine imagery the seer of old likened the mind unto a tree. The tree shakes down its fruits, and the mind sheds forth its thoughts. The boughs of the one will cover the land with forests; the faculties of the other will sow the world with harvests that blight or harvests that bless. The measure of personal worth, therefore, is the number and quality of thoughts issuing from man's mind. For all the doing called commerce, and all the speaking called conversation and books, begin with the thinking called ideas. Each thing was first a thought. A loom is Arkwright's thought dressed up in iron clothes. Books are the scholar's thoughts caught and fastened upon the white page. As our planet and the harvests that cover it are the thoughts of God rushing into visible expression, so all houses and ships, all cities and institutions, are man's inner thoughts, taking on outer and material embodiment.