Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones.

To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.

The hunger of the eye is not to be despised; and they are to be pitied who have starvation of the eye.

The methods by which men have met and conquered trouble, or been slain by it, are the same in every age.

A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.

Ordinarily rivers run small at the beginning, grow broader and broader as they proceed, and become widest and deepest at the point, where they enter the sea. It is such rivers that the Christian's life is like. But the life of the mere worldly man is like those rivers in Southern Africa, which, proceeding from mountain freshets, are broad and deep at the beginning, and grow narrower and more shallow as they advance. They waster themselves by soaking into the sands, and at last they die out entirely. The farther they run the less there is of them.

Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.