“I have now forgotten all my mathematics and arithmetic, all my Greek, and almost all my Latin; but I cleave to those who were true nurses of my boyhood still.”

Valuing formative books and storytellers above forgotten instruction · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Art
• Childhood
• Memory

“Let no one despise the benefits which thus open the young and tender heart. They are the gates of knowledge.”

Linking emotional awakening with genuine understanding · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Childhood
• Education
• Love

“When we encounter a new idea it surprises us, and we begin to doubt and examine it—and this is thought.”

Defining thought as active examination rather than passive acceptance · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Education
• Truth

“The heart of a man is wider than that of a child.”

Suggesting that emotional capacity deepens with experience · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Childhood
• Love

“These questions lie between him and God.”

Placing ultimate moral accountability beyond human law · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Faith
• Truth

“There are some faults which are not crimes at all.”

Distinguishing moral failure from punishable wrongdoing · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Justice
• Truth

“In earthly justice there is no pity. It is defective in nice distinctions.”

Contrasting legal judgement with moral compassion · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Justice
• Truth

“By the aid of these and other distresses, I began to learn something of the nature of compassion.”

Recognising suffering as a severe education in empathy · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Compassion
• Death

“I was utterly mistaken. Indeed, it was not long before I discovered that he had qualities which were superior to my own.”

A candid admission of prejudice corrected by acquaintance · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Humility
• Truth

“We love or pity individuals, not multitudes, and we cannot, if we would, forget them.”

Locating lasting compassion in the recognition of individual lives · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Compassion
• Love
• Memory

“I do not remember a scholar—scarcely a dunce. No one was an expert, even in crime.”

Wryly portraying an undistinguished but peaceable village · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Society
• Truth

“What teacher has ever endeavored to instil into his pupils the value of weeds or grasses, of animal or vegetable nature... the wonders of space, or of the seasons; of night, of silence?”

Calling for education to include wonder, observation and silence · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Education
• Nature

“Let no one despise any means by which the intellect of a boy may be widened or strengthened.”

Advocating a broad and humane education · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Childhood
• Education

“Your thoughts, which have hitherto been obscured by boyish things, become refined; your sight opens and admits wider sights and more gentle objects.”

Describing maturity as an expansion of perception and sympathy · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Beauty
• Childhood
• Nature

“The violet in the first grass, the daisy in the meadow, the rose and honeysuckle blossom which enrich every hedge, feed your mind gradually with grace and sweetness and strength.”

Presenting close attention to nature as nourishment for the mind · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Beauty
• Nature

“Nature, endlessly prolific Nature, assumes a new shape at every turn.”

Celebrating nature's inexhaustible variety · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Beauty
• Nature

“I always wrote from the mere pleasure of writing. I had no other stimulus.”

Defining literary creation as an intrinsically joyful act · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter II (published posthumously, 1877)

• Art
• Joy
• Poetry

“A fame which has been pronounced eternal has been cut short by the caprices of the age.”

Observing how literary reputation changes with fashion · Preface to Recollections of Men of Letters (published 1877)

• Fame
• Time

“I have noticed, too, that the immortality inflicted by critics has sometimes speedily come to an end.”

Mocking critical declarations of permanent fame · Preface to Recollections of Men of Letters (published 1877)

• Fame
• Truth

“Never let us forget the past—the wise past, that has fed us, and taught us, and rendered us what we are. Rather, kneel down and thank the rich and faded centuries, that have left such jewels behind them.”

Urging gratitude for the intellectual inheritance of earlier ages · Preface to Recollections of Men of Letters (published 1877)

• Art
• Memory
• Time

“I bought a Shakespeare, and entered into a world beyond my own.”

Evoking literature as an entrance into enlarged experience · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter II (published posthumously, 1877)

• Art
• Imagination

“I will buy a Shakespeare with the first money that I get.”

Expressing the urgency of a young reader's literary discovery · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter II (published posthumously, 1877)

• Art
• Childhood

“She it was who first taught me to know him and to love him, and led eventually to my wondering admiration for the greatest genius that the world has ever produced.”

Remembering the person who awakened his lifelong love of Shakespeare · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter II, on Shakespeare (published posthumously, 1877)

• Art
• Childhood
• Memory

“The surrounding natures must catch a portion of it, as of a portion of the sun or air, and diffuse it in their turn.”

Describing goodness as something naturally shared and renewed · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter I (published posthumously, 1877)

• Hope
• Kindness
• Nature