The man that hails you Tom or Jack, and proves by thumps upon your back how he esteems your merit, is such a friend, that one had need be very much his friend indeed to pardon or to bear it.

My soul is sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.

The Cross! There, and there only (though the deist rave, and the atheist, if Earth bears so base a slave); There and there only, is the power to save.

The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fiction that ever was invented; our Saviour's speech to His disciples, with which He closed His earthly ministrations, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affection, surpass everything that I ever read; and like the spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the heart.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.

Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.