Friendship closes its eye rather than see the moon eclipsed; while malice denies that it is ever at the full.

Every Irishman, the saying goes, has a potato in his head.

It is well for us that we are born babies in intellect. Could we understand half what mothers say and do to their infants, we should be filled with a conceit of our own importance, which would render us insupportable through life.

Never put much confidence in such as put no confidence in others. A man prone to suspect evil is mostly looking in his neighbor for what he sees in himself. As to the pure all things are pure, even so to the impure all things are impure.

The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience.

A mother should give her children a superabundance of enthusiasm; that after they have lost all they are sure to lose on mixing with the world, enough may still remain to prompt fated support them through great actions.

Nothing is farther than earth from heaven; nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.