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

Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehoods, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal.

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.

No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

A grave, wherever found, preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul.

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.

Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person's expense!