If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all bands alike and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.

It is not great, but little good-haps that make up happiness.

The happiness of life consists, like the day, not in single flashes (of light), but in one continuous mild serenity. The most beautiful period of the heart's existence is in this calm equable light, even although it be only moonshine or twilight. Now the mind alone can obtain for us this heavenly cheerfulness and peace.

Fancy rules over two thirds of the universe, the past, and future, while reality is confined to the present

It is not the end of joy that makes old age so sad, but the end of hope.

Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish them to sing?