Man's cleverness is almost indefinite, and stretches like an elastic band, but human nature is like an iron ring. You can go round and round it, you can polish it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby you will make it bulge out the other, but you will NEVER, while the world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference.

The law of England is much more severe upon offences against property than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money.

The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late

Truly wealth, which men spend all their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing at the last.

Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?

Think then what it is to live on here eternally and yet be human; toage in soul and see our beloved die and pass to lands whither we maynot hope to follow; to wait while drop by drop the curse of the longcenturies falls upon our imperishable being, like water slow drippingon a diamond that it cannot wear, till they be born anew forgetful ofus, and again sink from our helpless arms into the void unknowable.

And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.