In other countries poverty is a misfortune - with us it is a crime.

Birds sing in vain to the ear, flowers bloom in vain to the eye, of mortified vanity and galled ambition. He who would know repose in retirement must carry into retirement his destiny, integral and serene, as the Caesars transported the statue of Fortune into the chamber they chose for their sleep.

Fortune is said to be blind, but her favorites never are. Ambition has the eye of the eagle, prudence that of the lynx; the first looks through the air, the last along the ground.

When the world frowns, we can face it; but let it smile, and we are undone.

To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.

What is past is past, there is a future left to all men, who have the virtue to repent and the energy to atone.

Let youth cherish sleep, the happiest of earthly boons, while yet it is at its command; for there cometh the day to all when "neither the voice of the lute nor the birds" shall bring back the sweet slumbers that fell on their young eyes as unbidden as the dews.