We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

it is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.

A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.

Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.

Sunlight is like the breath of life to the pomp of autumn.