If the art of gardening is at last to turn back from her extravagances and rest with her other sisters, it is, above everything, necessary to have clearly before you what you require . . . It is certainly tasteless and inconsistent to desire to encompass the world with a garden-wall, but very practicable and reasonable to make a garden . . . into a characteristic whole to the eye, heart, and nderstanding alike.

Truth lives on in the midst of deception.

Friends show me what I can do, foes teach me what I should do.

As soon as I have begun to fear I have ceased to fear.

There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.

Man, living, feeling man, is the easy sport of the over-mastering present.

Truth suffers no loss if a vehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that virtue and religion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies them.