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.

It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.

If truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom.

The breath of peace was fanning her glorious brow, her head was bowed a very little forward, and a tress, escaping from its bonds, fell by the side of her pure white temple, and close to her just opened lips; it hung there motionless! no breath disturbed its repose! She slept as an angel might sleep, having accomplished the mission of her God.

To do nothing is the way to be nothing.

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

Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.]