The wife ought to have the first child and the husband the second, then there wouldn't ever be any more.

Alas! in nature, as in art, we gain only according to our capacity. You cannot put an ocean in a pint pot.

Unlike most great talkers, the rooks are good workers, too.

happiness depends more upon the state of mind - and body, perhaps - than upon circumstances and events.

It was ordained that our earthly pilgrammage should be a struggle, and life would be a tame affair if everything went smoothly.

So quiet and subtle is the beauty of December that escapes the notice of many people their whole lives through. Colour gives way to form: every branch distinct, in a delicate tracery against the sky. New vistas, obscured all Summer by leafage, now open up.

Candleford Green was but a small village and there were fields and meadows and woods all around it. As soon as Laura crossed the doorstep, she could see some of these. But mere seeing from a distance did not satisfy her; she longed to go alone far into the fields and hear the birds singing, the brooks tinkling, and the wind rustling through the corn, as she had when a child. To smell things and touch things, warm earth and flowers and grasses, and to stand and gaze where no one could see her, drinking it all in.