There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve.

Pride's chickens have bonny feathers, but they are an expensive brood to rear. They eat up everything, and are always lean when brought to market.

The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning—first fallen flake of the coming snows of age—is a disagreeable thing.... So are flying twinges of gout, shortness of breath on the hill-side, the fact that even the moderate use of your friend's wines at dinner upsets you. These things are disagreeable because they tell you that you are no longer young—that you have passed through youth, are now in middle age, and faring onward to the shadows in which, somewhere, a grave is hid.

There is a certain even-handed justice in Time; and for what he takes away he gives us something in return. He robs us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tranquility and repose—the mild autumnal weather of the soul.

Every man's road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. If we attempt to steal a glimpse of its features it disappears.

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