Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.

Duty, though set about by thorns, may still be made a staff supporting even while it tortures. Cast it away, and, like the prophet's wand, it changes to a snake.

After all there is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.

There are a good many pious people who are as careful of their religion as of their best service of china, only using it on holy occasions, for fear it should get chipped or flawed in working-day wear.

A creature undefiled by the taint of the world, unvexed by its injustice, unwearied by its hollow pleasures; a being fresh from the source of light, with something of its universal lustre in it. If childhood be this, how holy the duty to see that in its onward growth it shall be no other!

He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.

Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it's ten to one if they hang long together.