Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I'll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.

... Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's works, but like other beautiful works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers.

The ocean asks for nothing but those who stand by her shores gradually attune themselves to her rhythm.

Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking.

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.

We must leave the discovery of this mystery, like all others, to time, and accident, and Heaven's pleasure.

My imagination would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention