Intellectually, as many suffer from too much physical health as too little. A fat body makes a lean mind.
RULE OR RUIN.
A thoroughly vigorous man will not actively belong to any associated body, except to rule in it. Not to control in its affairs is to have his individuality cut down to the standard of those that do. He must stamp himself upon the institution, or its enfeebling influence will be stamped upon him.
SANS PEUR.
No man is competent greatly to serve the cause of truth till he has made audacity a part of his mental constitution.
There are some dangers that are to be courted,—courted and braved as a coy mistress is to be wooed, with all the more vigor as the day makes against us. When Fortune frowns upon her worthy wooer, it is still permitted him to think how pleasant it will be ere long to bask in her smiles.
SLIGHTS.
In seasons when the energies flag and our ambition fails us, a rebuff is a blessing, by rousing us from inaction, and stirring us to more vigorous efforts to make good our pretensions.
SOCIAL REGENERATION.
Private worth is the only true basis of public prosperity. Still, ministers and moralists do but tinker at the regeneration of the world in merely recommending individual improvement. The most prolific cause of depravity is the social system that forms the character to what it is. The virtues, like plants, to flourish, must have a soil and air adapted to them. A plant at the seaside yields soda; the same plant grown inland produces potash. What society most needs, for its permanent advancement, is uniformity of inheritance.