The greatest grace of a gift, perhaps, is that it anticipates and admits of no return.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

Were a star quenched on high,For ages would its light,Still travelling downward from the sky,Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies,For years beyond our ken,The light he leaves behind him liesUpon the paths of men.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence.

The atmosphere breathes rest and comfort, and the many chambers seem full of welcomes.

In old age our bodies are worn-out instruments, on which the soul tries in vain to play the melodies of youth. But because the instrument has lost its strings, or is out of tune, it does not follow that the musician has lost his skill.