Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

Weak minds may be injured by novel-reading; but sensible people find both amusement and instruction therein.

The monkey is an organized sarcasm upon the human race.

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

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

All true religion must stand on true morality.

When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder. If we receive news, that a hundred thousand dollars had been left them by some one dying, we should be thrown into an ecstasy of rejoicing; but when they have gone home to God, we stand, and mourn, and pine, and wonder at the mystery of Providence.