It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures.

First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.

He who lives wisely to himself and his own heart looks at the busy world through the loopholes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray.

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.

Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.