To cultivate a garden is. . . to go hand in hand with Nature in some of her most beautiful processes.

A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.

Few minds wear out; more rust out.

Vanity in an old man is charming. It is a proof of an open, nature. Eighty winters have not frozen him up, or taught him concealments. In a young person it is simply allowable; we do not expect him to be above it.

God, we are told, looked upon the world after he had created it and pronounced it good; but ascetic pietists, in their wisdom, cast their eyes over it, and substantially pronounce it a dead failure, a miserable production, a poor concern.

A better principle than this, that "the majority shall rule," is this other, that justice shall rule. "Justice," says the code of Justinian, "is the constant and perpetual desire to render every man his due.

Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar of life; the one preserves, the other sweetens it.