Faith is like private capital, stored in one's own house. It is like a public savings bank or loan office, from which individuals receive assistance in their days of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.

The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.

Oh happy he who still can hope in our day to breathe the truth while plunged in seas of error! What we don't know is really what we need, and what we know is of no use to us whatever!

Belief is not the beginning of knowledge - it is the end.