The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, would be good for me, too.

So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.

The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.

We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time.

Being a teacher is like being in jail; once it's on your record, you can never get rid of it.

What wisdom, what warning can prevail against gladness? There is no law so strong that a little gladness may not transgress.

It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.