William Greenough Thayer Shedd

A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.

— William Greenough Thayer Shedd

The piecemeal criticism which, like the fly, scans only the edge of a plinth in the great edifice upon which it crawls, disappears under a criticism that is all-comprehending and all-surveying.

— William Greenough Thayer Shedd

There is just now a great clamor and demand for "culture;" but it is not so much culture that is needed as discipline.

— William Greenough Thayer Shedd

Is it for the cultivated man, the man of broad and general views, to throw himself without reserve and with all his weight, into what, for aught he yet knows, may be only a cross-current and eddy, instead of the main stream of truth?

— William Greenough Thayer Shedd