Every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol.

Do what we can, summer will have its flies.

When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune.

Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquillity that religion is powerless to bestow.

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is set above him. He learns that his being is without bound; that to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness.

Pride ruined the angels.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.