By the ancients, courage was regarded as practically the main part of virtue; by us, though I hope we are not less brave, purity is so regarded now.

The mind is like a sheet of white paper in this, that the impressions it receives the oftenest, and retains the longest, are black ones.

Children always turn towards the light. Oh that grown-up people in this world became like little children!

To no kind of begging are people so averse, as to begging pardon; that is, when there is any serious ground for doing so.

By the ancients, courage was regarded as practically the main part of virtue; by us, though I hope we are not less brave, purity is so regarded now.

Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor, prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeeper, doorkeeper, all in one, and audience into the bargain.

Many people make their own God; and he is much what the French may mean when they talk of le bon Dieu,--very indulgent, rather weak, near at hand when we want anything, but far away out of sight when we have a mind to do wrong. Such a God is as much an idol as if he were an image of stone.