every generation has a conceit of itself which elevates it, in its own opinion, above that which comes after it.

It is often easier to justify one's self to others than to respond to the secret doubts that arise in one's own bosom.

Somehow even a popular fallacy has an aspect of truth when it suits one's own case.

Truly there is nothing in the world so blessed or so sweet as the heritage of children.

It has been my fate in a long life of production to be credited chiefly with the equivocal virtue of industry, a quality so excellent in morals, so little satisfactory in art.

Against the long years when family bonds make up all that is happiest in life, there must always be reckoned those moments of agitation and revolution, during which the bosom of a family is the most unrestful and disturbing place in existence.

The middle of life is the testing-ground of character and strength.