It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiostiy, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone.

It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser.

It is better to be a fool than to be dead.

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality.

You must suffer me to go my own dark way.

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

There is no music like a little river's . . . It takes the mind out-of-doors . . . and . . . it quiets a man down like saying his prayers.