the breed is more than the pasture. As you know, the cuckoo lays her eggs in any bird's nest; it may be hatched among blackbirds or robins or thrushes, but it is always a cuckoo. ... a man cannot deliver himself from his ancestors.

A poverty that is universal may be cheerfully borne; it is an individual poverty that is painful and humiliating.

... good and evil are so interwoven in life that every good, traced up far enough, is found to involve evil. This is the great mystery of life.

Death is like the setting of the sun. The sun never sets; life never ceases. ... we think the sun sets, and it never ceases shining; we think our friends die, and they never cease living.

Spiritual favors are not always to be looked for, and not always to be relied on.

if a thing is to be done, there is no time like the hour that has not struck.

For still I see that forethought spares afterthought and after-sorrow.