never was there a thoroughly noble nature without some romance in it.

It is not the smallest use to try to make people good, unless you try at the same time - and they feel that you are trying - to make them happy. And you rarely can make another happy, unless you are happy yourself.

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.

A parent, unlike a poet, is not born - he is made.

Down in the deep, up in the sky , I see them always, far or nigh, And I shall see them till I die The old familiar faces.

... it does not do to tell great people anything unpleasant.

Ethics, as has been well said, are the finest fruits of humanity, but they are not its roots