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

It is with charity as with money--the more we stand in need of it, the less we have to give away.

Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work; a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will; a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words.

Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave.

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.

Constant companionship is not enjoyable, any more than constant eating. We sit too long at the table of friendship, when we outsit our appetites for each other's thoughts.

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