Why is it that water, so monotonous in its characteristics, should nevertheless possess a charm for every mind? I believe it is chiefly because it bears the impress of the Creator, which we feel neither the power of time or of man can efface or alter.

Readers soon tire of prefaces, and skip them, and so the labor of writing them is lost.

It is useless to check the vain dunce who has caught the mania of scribbling, whether prose or poetry, canzonets or criticisms,--let such a one go on till the disease exhausts itself. Opposition like water, thrown on burning oil, but increases the evil, because a person of weak judgment will seldom listen to reason, but become obstinate under reproof.

What in the rising man was industry and economy, becomes in the rich man parsimony and avarice.

There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind.

Oh, wondrous power! how little understood, Entrusted to the mother's mind alone, To fashion genius, form the soul for good, Inspire a West, or train a Washington.

self-control, in every station and to every individual, is indispensable, if people would retain that equanimity of mind, which, depending on self-respect, is the essential of contentment and happiness.