SECRET OF SUCCESS
1855
"If you would have your minds well disciplined and well stored with useful information, you must be willing to retire, for a time at least, from the enticing and distracting scenes of the busy world, and in the quietude of academic life, devote your powers to those labors which alone can secure the desired boon. Here the work must be done, here the foundation must be laid, upon which your future attainments and your future eminence must rest. Neglect this preparation, and you can have no well grounded hope of rising to distinction in society, or of exerting an influence which shall leave a record of your name and your deeds upon the hearts and memories of those who shall come after you....
"The secret of success is the ability to fix the attention on one subject at a time...."
CREATIVE WORK
1862
"I urge you to cultivate a taste not only for literature, but for making literature. The literature of a country determines its institutions, its social conditions, and its destiny. It is really its inner life whence its external manifestations spring."
LITERARY TASTE
JUNE, 1894
"Many a wise man has said repeatedly: 'Let me go into a young lady's parlor and examine the literature which lies on her table, and the books which fill the shelves of her library, and I will tell you all about her; the secret thoughts which habitually haunt her imagination, the purposes, the ambitions, the affections, good or bad, which agitate and fill her heart; the scenes, the sights, the objects, the aims which thrill her soul—all this I know from the companionship amid which she delights to linger and live, and with which she delights to commune.' Young ladies, when you reach home and unpack your trunks, will you take out the text books you have studied in this school, one by one, and place them on the highest shelf of your library and in the far corner, and with a scowl on your face say to them, 'Now, you go and stay where I put you; you have cost me weeks and months and years of toil, of anxieties, of troubles, vexations and tears, but you have at last given me my full diploma and I want nothing more to do with you'! Are you going to speak thus to your best friends, who have done more for you than father and mother?
"Are you going to turn your back upon, and quit the company of, the only true aristocracy of all the ages and all countries, and seek lower associations? These people are not upstarts; they have lived and still live in all ages and countries; they have been the intimate and loving companions of kings and queens; of emperors and statesmen; divines and poets, scientists and linguists, and all the great of all the earth and every clime and kindred.
"Again, the Good Book says, 'Where there is no vision the people perish.' This was spoken most probably in regard to the ancient prophets and seers who received the divine light from the great original source, and reflected it from their own hearts and minds on a benighted race.
"But has not the great Inspirer of light and knowledge, since that remote past, raised up other prophets and seers and imparted other visions that the people might not perish? These great men are among us; they do not compel, but they invite companionship; they say, 'Come, go with us, talk with us, commune with our spirit, drink with us of the clear, cool springs of nature; the journey is pleasant and the scenery is grand; come, go with us and we will do thee good.'