The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.

There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface.

I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me.

The rarest attainment is to grow old happily and gracefully.

Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.

I do not know how the affair at Canterbury is generally considered; but I have heard individuals of all parties and all opinions speak of it and never without merriment or indignation. Fifty years hence, the black laws of Connecticut will be a greater source of amusement to the antiquarian, than her famous blue laws.

The old men gazed on them in their loveliness, and turned away with that deep and painful sigh, which the gladness of childhood, and thetransient beauty of youth, are so apt to awaken in the bosom of the aged.