We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

But speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance. Speak the truth, and all things alive orbrute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.

I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expect everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate good. . . . If we will take the good we find, . . . we shall have heaping measures. . . .

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer.

Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.