Bread, milk and butter are of venerable antiquity. They taste of the morning of the world.

Anglers boast of the innocence of their pastime; yet it puts fellow-creatures to the torture. They pique themselves on their meditative faculties; and yet their only excuse is a want of thought.

God made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes; for as laughter enables mirth and surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness.

I am persuaded there is no such thing after all as a perfect enjoyment of solitude; for the more delicious the solitude the more one wants a companion.

A pleasure so exquisite as almost to amount to pain.

The person who can be only serious or only cheerful, is but half a man.

Great women belong to history and to self-sacrifice, not to the annals of a stage, however dignified.