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.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.

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

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.

Sight is by much the noblest of the senses. We receive our notices from the other four, through the organs of sensation only. We hear, we feel, we smell, we taste, by touch. But sight rises infinitely higher. It is refined above matter, and equals the faculty of spirit.

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

When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,--or, in other words, when his HOBBY-HORSE grows head- strong,--farewell cool reason and fair discretion.