Nature never quite goes along with us. She is somber at weddings, sunny at funerals, and she frowns on ninety-nine out of a hundred picnics.

The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.

Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile.

Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)

Every day travels toward death; the last only arrives at it.

If we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death.

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.