Death, which we are accustomed to consider an evil, really acts for us the friendliest part, and takes away the commonplace of existence.

The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality.

It is the sternest philosophy, but on the whole the truest, that, in the wide arena of the world, failure and success are not accidents, as we so frequently suppose, but the strictest justice.

My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.

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

Good-humor and, generosity carry day with the popular heart all the world over.

A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.