He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming.

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.

Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.

An individual has a healthy personality to the exact degree to which they have the propensity to look for the good in every situation.

The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and largercircles, and that without end.

A seashell should be the crest of England, not only because it represents a power built on the waves, but also the hard finish ofthe men. The Englishman is finished like a cowry or a murex.

Don't be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don't bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives.