A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.

'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio.

How will you find good? It is not a thing of choice; it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne and flows by the path of obedience.

A mother's yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

Man may content himself with the applause of the world and the homage paid to his intellect, but woman's heart has holier idols.

Unwonted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves: there are conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged to sneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the same incongruous manner.

Certainly the determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and novel impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.