Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother.

'Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'.

I always think the flowers can see us, and know what we are thinking about.

There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.

I am feeling easy now, and you will well understand that after undergoing pain this ease is opening paradise. Invalids must be excused for being eloquent about themselves.

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.