Nothing marks the change from the city to the country so much as the absence of grinding noises. The country is never silent. But its sounds are separate, distinct, and as it were, articulate.

The beginnings of moral enterprises in this world are never to be measured by any apparent growth. ... At length comes the sudden ripeness and the full success, and he who is called in at the final moment deems this success his own. He is but the reaper and not the labourer. Other men sowed and tilled and he but enters into their labours.

Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to be suggestions of that realm which is the home of the heart.

Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.

Nowhere on the globe do men live so well as in America, or grumble so much.

The diameter of each day is measured by the stretch of thought - not by the rising and setting of the sun.