It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to concern ourselves about--what to do next. No man can do the second thing. He can do the first.

Let me, if I may, be ever welcomed to my room in winter by a glowing hearth, in summer by a vase of flowers. If I may not, let me think how nice they would be and bury myself in my work. I do not think that the road to contentment lies in despising what we have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight that the worlds holds, and be content without it.

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.

As to the pure all things are pure, so the common mind sees far more vulgarity in others than the mind developed in genuine refinement.

The possession of wealth is, as it were, prepayment, and involves an obligation of honor to the doing of correspondent work.

I believe in fate, never in chance.

A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he may go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter and thinking himself a good Christian.