We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.

Brave old-flowers! Wall-flowers, Gilly flowers, Stocks! For even as the field-flowers, from which a trifle, a ray of beauty, a drop of perfume, divides them, they have charming names, the softest in the language; and each of them, like tiny, art-less ex-votos, or like medals bestowed by the gratitude of men, proudly bears three or four.

An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.

Many a happiness in life, a many a disaster, is due to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.

At every crossway on the path that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past. Let us have no fear that the fair towers of former days be sufficiently defended. The least that the most timid among us can do is not to add to the immense dead weight that nature drags along.

We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.

I have done what I could do in life, and if I could not do better, I did not deserve it. In vain I have tried to step beyond what bound me.