I like people to be saints; but I want them to be first and superlatively honest men.

In youth, grief comes with a rush and overflow, but it dries up, too, like the torrent. In the winter of life it remains a miserable pool, resisting all evaporation.

There is a transcendent power in example.

We recognize the action of God in great things: we exclude it in small. We forget that the Lord of eternity is also the Lord of the hour.

Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure light is left shining on it; and that is faith. Old age, like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations.

I study much, and the more I study, the oftener I go back to those first principles which are so simple that childhood itself can lisp them.

We are amused through the intellect, but it is the heart that saves us from ennui.