To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness.

Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

I am persuaded that every time a man smiles - but much more so when he laughs - it adds something to this fragment of life.

If time, like money, could be laid by while one was not using it, there might be some excuse for the idleness of half of the world, but yet not a full one. For even this would be such an economy as the living on a principal sum, without making it purchase interest.

The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.

There is such a torture, happily unknown to ancient tyranny, as talking a man to death. Marcus Aurelius advises to assent readily to great talkers--in hopes, I suppose, to put an end to the argument.