Let us resolve: First, to attain the grace of silence; second, to deem all fault finding that does no good a sin; third, to practice the grade and virtue of praise.

That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future, which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to.

God has always been to me not so much like a father as like a dear and tender mother.

People who hate trouble generally get a good deal of it.

A ship is a beauty and a mystery wherever we see it.

If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall in love with you.

These Germans seem an odd race, a mixture of clay and spirit - what with their beer-drinking and smoking, and their slow, stolid ways, you would think them perfectly earth; but ethereal fire is all the while working in them, and bursing out in most unexpected jets of poetry and sentiment, like blossoms on a cactus.