Silence sweeter is than speech.

What small account The All-living seems to take of this thin flame Which we call life. He sends a moment's blast Out of war's nostrils, and a myriad Of these our puny tapers are blown out Forever.

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.

Happiness is not an end - it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence.

Though it is folly to suppose that happiness is a matter of volition, and that we can make ourselves content and cheerful whenever we choose - a theory that many poor hypochondriacs are taunted with till they are nigh driven mad - yet, on the other hand, no sane mind is ever left without the power of self-discipline and self-control in a measure, which measure increases in proportion as it is exercised.

Why cannot one always do, not only the right thing, but at the right time?

O blest one hour like this! to rise And see grief's shadows backward roll; While bursts on unaccustomed eyes The glad Aurora of the soul.