The only joy in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine.

Then climate is a great impediment to idle persons; we often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but still we regard the clouds and the rain.

We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Everything that is his,--his name, his form, his dress, books, and instruments,--fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

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

Any relation to the land, the habit of tilling it, or mining it, or even hunting on it, generates the feeling of patriotism. He who keeps shop on it, or he who merely uses it as a support to his desk and ledger, or to his manufactory, values it less.

This body, full of faults, Has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions.