A house built on sand is, in fair weather, just as good as if builded on a rock. A cobweb is as good as the mightiest chain cable when there is no strain on it. It is trial that proves one thing weak and another strong.

No town can fail of beauty, though its walks were gutters and its houses hovels, if venerable trees make magnificent colonnades along its streets.

Not that which men do worthily, but that which they do successfully, is what history makes haste to record.

Men will let you abuse them if only you will make them laugh.

The God of the Bible is a moral monstrosity.

As plants take hold, not for the sake of staying, but only that they may climb higher, so it is with men. By every part of our nature we clasp things above us, one after another, not for the sake of remaining where we take hold, but that we may go higher.

Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.