There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed.

Gems, in fact, are a species of mineral flowers; they are the blossoms of the dark, hard mine; and what they want in perfume, they make up in durability.

What a fool is he who locks his door to keep out spirits, who has in his own bosom a spirit he dares not meet alone; whose voice, smothered far down, and piled over with mountains of earthliness, is yet like the forewarning trumpet of doom!

Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.

Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.

There is no phase of the Italian mind that has not found expression in its music.

Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.