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

I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with thosewhich are insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation.

Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.

Why do you ever mend your clothes, unless that, wearing them, you may mend your ways. Let us sing.

It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain.

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.

Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.