Human life is so full of pain, that once past the youthful delusion that a sad countenance is interesting, and an incurable woe the most delightful thing possible, the mind instinctively turns where it can get rest, and cheer and sunshine. And the friend who can bring to it the largest portion of these is, of a natural necessity, the most useful, the most welcome, and the most dear.

It is not work that kills, but "worry."

Silence sweeter is than speech.

The plan of this world is infinite similarity and yet infinite variety.

There can be - there ought to be - no medium course; a love-affair is either sober earnest or contemptible folly, if not wickedness: to gossip about it is, in the first instance, intrusive, unkind, or dangerous; in the second, simply silly.

there is nothing so absolute as the tyranny of weakness.

There are no judgments so harsh as those of the erring, the inexperienced, and the young.