As warmth makes even glaciers trickle, and opens streams in the ribs of frozen mountains, so the heart knows the full flow and life of its grief only when it begins to melt and pass away.

A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm; maintain simplicity of taste; and ... unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraightened, ardent piety.

None love to speak so much, when the mood of speaking comes, as they who are naturally taciturn.

Most of the debts of Europe represent condensed drops of blood.

If a man can have only one kind of sense, let him have common sense. If he has that and uncommon sense too, he is not far from genius.

He who only does not appreciate floral beauty is to be pitied like any other man who is born imperfect. It is a misfortune not unlike blindness.

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.