Beautiful is old age—beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer. In the old man, Nature has fulfilled her work; she loads him with blessings; she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, surrounded by his children and his children's children, she rocks him softly away to a grave, to which he is followed with blessings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful.

We enter the world alone, we leave it alone.

The endurance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the marvel of human society.

Truth only smells sweet forever, and illusions, however innocent, are deadly as the canker worm.

The best that we can do for one another is to exchange our thoughts freely; and that, after all, is about all.

A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies; but sensible men will pay no attention to them.

Fear is the parent of cruelty.