We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.

All great natures delight in stability; all great men find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their faculties.

The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite.

Culture implies all which gives the mind possession of its own powers, as languages to the critic, telescope to the astronomer. Culture alters the political status of an individual. It raises a rival royalty in a monarchy. 'Tis king against king. It is ever a romance of history in all dynasties--the co-presence of the revolutionary force in intellect. It creates a personal independence which the monarch cannot look down, and to which he must often succumb.

How beautiful to have the church always open, so that every tired wayfaring man may come in and be soothed by all that art can suggest of a better world when he is weary with this.