A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature.

Cultivate simplicity or rather should I say banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart.

Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faerie Queen for a stopgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrews's Sermons?

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.

How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself!

Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who listen had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears.

Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.