There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age.... I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holiness—a beauty much more seldom met; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade.

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of mortal life.

Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.

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

A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.

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