Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up. * * * * * We cannot study nature profoundly without bringing ourselves into communion with the spirit of art which pervades and fills the universe. * * * * * If there be one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another, it is a brave man; it is a man who dares to look the devil in the face, and tell him he is a devil. * * * * * It is one of the precious mysteries of sorrow, that it finds solace in unselfish thought. * * * * * True art is but the anti-type of nature, the embodiment of discovered beauty in utility. * * * * * In order to have any success in life, or any worthy success, you must resolve to carry into your work a fulness of knowledge; not merely a sufficiency, but more than a sufficiency. * * * * * Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. * * * * * If you are not too large for the place, you are too small for it. * * * * * What the arts are to the world of matter, literature is to the world of mind. * * * * * Many books we can read in a railroad car, and feel a harmony between the rushing of the train and the haste of the author; but to enjoy standard works, we need the quiet of a winter evening; an easy-chair before a cheerful fire, and all the equanimity of spirits we can command. * * * * * He who would understand the real spirit of literature should not select authors of any one period alone, but rather go to the fountain-head, add trace the little rill as it courses along down the ages, broadening and deepening into the great ocean of thought which the men of the present are exploring. * * * * * The true literary man is no mere gleaner, following in the rear and gathering up the fragments of the world's thought; but he goes down deep into the heart of humanity, watches its throbbings; analyzes the forces at work there; traces out, with prophetic foresight, their tendencies, and thus, standing out far beyond his age, holds up the picture of what it is and is to be. [Letter to A. B. Hinsdale, 1876.] I have followed this rule [as a lawyer]: whenever I have had a case, I have undertaken to work out thoroughly the principles involved in it; not for the case alone, but for the sake of comprehending thoroughly that branch of the law. [From "Life and Character of Almeda A. Booth," June 22, 1876.]