The solitary side of our nature demands leisure for reflection upon subjects on which the dash and whirl of daily business, so long as its clouds rise thick about us, forbid the intellect to fasten itself.

What is called virtue in the common sense of the word has nothing to do with this or that man's prosperity, or even happiness.

That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.

Morality, when vigorously alive, sees farther than intellect, and provides unconsciously for intellectual difficulties.

Those who seek for something more than happiness in this world must not complain if happiness is not their portion.

Nature is not a partisan, but out of her ample treasue house she produces children in infinite variety, of which she is equally the mother, and disowns none of them.

There is always a part of our being into which those who are dearer to us far than our own lives are yet unable to enter.