In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been good for some men to be alone, and for some women also.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.

Death is the only physician, the shadow of his valley the only journeying that will cure us of age and the gathering fatigue of years.

One of the tortures of jealousy is, that it can never turn away its eyes from the thing that pains it.

Education was almost entirely a matter of luck — usually of ill-luck — in those distant days.