All men are tempted. There is no man that lives that can't be broken down, provided it is the right temptation, put in the right spot.

I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent.

But there have been human hearts, constituted just like ours, for six thousand years. The same stars rise and set upon this globe that rose upon the plains of Shinar or along the Egyptian Nile and the same sorrows rise and set in every age.

As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them.

The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.

Poverty is very good in poems but very bad in the house; very good in maxims and sermons but very bad in practical life.