Social life is filled with doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, when the imagination is dethroned, is turned to weariness and ennui.

I think hearts are very much like glasses. If they do not break with the first ring, they usually last a considerable time.

That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.

Suicide and antipathy to fires in a bedroom seem to be among the national characteristics. Perhaps the same moral cause may originate both.

Curiosity and courtesy are very often at variance.

I cannot love evergreens - they are the misanthropes of nature. To them the spring brings no promise, the autumn no decline; they are cut off from the sweetest of all ties with their kind - sympathy. ... I will have no evergreens in my garden; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favorite tree shall drop together - no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay.

Hopes and regrets are the sweetest links of existence.