Man can see his reflection in water only when he bends down close to it, and the heart of man, too, must lean down to the heart of his fellow; then it will see itself within his heart.

Where bright imagination reigns, the fine-wrought spirit feels acuter pains.

eternity is a depth which no geometry can measure, no arithmetic calculate, no imagination conceive, no rhetoric describe.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

Anger is the common refuge of insignificance. People who feel their character to be slight, hope to give it weight by inflation: but the blown bladder at its fullest distention is still empty.

It is a sober truth that people who live only to amuse themselves work harder at the task than most people do in earning their daily bread.

it may be in morals as it is in optics, the eye and the object may come too close to each other, to answer the end of vision. There are certain faults which press too near our self-love to be even perceptible to us.