A person should go out on the water on a fine day to a small distance from a beautiful coast, if he would see Nature really smile. Never does she look so delightful, as when the sun is brightly reflected by the water, while the waves are gently rippling, and the prospect receives life and animation from the glancing transit of an occasional row-boat, and the quieter motion of a few small vessels. But the land must be well in sight; not only for its own sake, but because the immensity and awfulness of a mere sea-view would ill accord with the other parts of the glittering and joyous scene.

There is a glare about worldly success which is very apt to dazzle men's eyes.

The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.

The grand difficulty is to feel the reality of both worlds, so as to give each its due place in our thoughts and feelings, to keep our mind's eye and our heart's eye ever fixed on the land of promise, without looking away from the road along which we are to travel toward it.

A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely.

They who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny the sun because it is not always noon.

In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression.