An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

It is better sometimes not to follow great reformers of abuses beyond the threshold of their homes.

That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow.

I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral.

There's times when the crockery seems alive, an' flies out o' your hand like a bird. It's like the glass, sometimes, 'ull crack as it stands. What is to be broke will be broke.

In the days when the spinning wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses--and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread lace, had their toy spinning wheels of polished oak--there might be seen, in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain palled undersized men who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race.