Although neither is to be despised, it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel no joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable and ever new.

To become a botanist, a geologist, a social philosopher, an antiquary, or an artist, is to enlarge one's possessions in the universe by an incalculably higher degree, and by a far surer sort of property, than to purchase a farm of many acres.

You had perhaps two thousand a year before the transaction; perhaps you have two thousand five hundred after it.

That represents your gain in the one case.

But in the other, you have thrown down a barrier which concealed significance and beauty.