What courage and patience are wanted for every life that aims to produce anything!

It is good to be helpful and kindly, but don't give yourself to be melted into candle grease for the benefit of the tallow trade.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric.

In every parting there is an image of death.

Death was not to be a leap: it was to be a long descent under thickening shadows.

Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty.