He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy; plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many.

Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?

I shall keep my book on the table here, and read a little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good, and help me through the day.

…to the inspiration of necessity, we owe half the wise, beautiful, and useful blessings of the world.

[She was] kept there in the sort of embrace a man gives to the dearest creature the world holds for him.

Education is not confined to books, and the finest characters often graduate from no college, but make experience their master, and life their book. [Some care] only for the mental culture, and [are] in danger of over-studying, under the delusion . . . that learning must be had at all costs, forgetting that health and real wisdom are better.

A quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic.