The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.

The busiest of living agents are certain dead men's thoughts.

Successful love takes a load off our hearts, and puts it upon our shoulders.

Nature has provided for the exigency of privation, by putting the measure of our necessities far below the measure of our wants. Our necessities are to our wants as Falstaff's pennyworth of bread to his any quantity of sack.

Without death in the world, existence in it would soon become, through over-population, the most frightful of curses.

We may learn from children how large a part of our grievances is imaginary. But the pain is just as real.

To death we owe our life; the passing of one generation opens a way for another.