Anecdotes are sometimes the best vehicles of truth, and if striking and appropriate are often more impressive and powerful than argument.

Ridicule may be the evidence of with or bitterness and may gratify a little mind, or an ungenerous temper, but it is no test of reason or truth.

Where duty is plain delay is both foolish and hazardous; where it is not, delay may be both wisdom and safety.

Indolence is the dry rot of even a good mind and a good character; the practical uselessness of both. It is the waste of what might be a happy and useful life.

Quiet and sincere sympathy is often the most welcome and efficient consolation to the afflicted. Said a wise man to one in deep sorrow, I did not come to comfort you; God only can do that; but I did come to say how deeply and tenderly I feel for you in your affliction.

Some so speak in exaggerations and superlatives that we need to make a large discount from their statements before we can come at their real meaning.

The great end of education is, to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.