Precept is instruction written in the sand; the tide flows over it and the record is gone; example is graven on the rock, and the lesson is not soon lost.

A man might pass for insane who should see things as they are.

Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.

The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found but must forever seek as an Ideal

To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life.

All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene

The domestic relations precede, and in our present existence are worth more than all our other social ties. They give the first throb to the heart, and unseal the deep fountains of its love. Home is the chief school of human virtue. Its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, and solicitudes form the chief interest of human life.