"It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death."
"The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper, often only a spark, to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer, have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity, its poets, seers, and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers and saviors, the light-bringers, way-showers and truth-tellers, and without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark."
"We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue."
"The helpful is beautiful; only the harmful is ugly."
"Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know."
"There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good."
"Appearance tyrannizes over truth."