A true test of friendship, to sit or walk with a friend for an hour in perfect silence , without wearying of one another's company.

... what a fatal thing in pictures, books, or human lives, is a lack of proportion.

we are so scornful when we are young!

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

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.

About the greatest virtue a friend can have, is to be able to hold her tongue; and through this, like all virtues carried to extremity, may grow into a fault, and do great harm, still, it never can do so much harm as that horrible laxity and profligacy of speech which is a the root of half the quarrels, cruelties, and injustices of the world.

The man who does his work, any work, conscientiously, must always be in one sense a great man.