A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point.

If the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another.

There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.

It was one of those moments—which sometimes occur only at the interval of years—when a man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind's eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewed himself as he did now.

Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.