I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me to the contrary.

Plutarch has a fine expression, with regard to some woman of learning, humility, and virtue;--that her ornaments were such as might be purchased without money, and would render any woman's life both glorious and happy.

The chaste mind, like a polished plane, may admit foul thoughts, without receiving their tincture.

There are many ways of inducing sleep--the thinking of purling rills, or waving woods; reckoning of numbers; droppings from a wet sponge fixed over a brass pan, etc. But temperance and exercise answer much better than any of these succedaneums.

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.

Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest,--and has wit in it, and instruction too,--if we can but find it out.

Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it; it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hand.