The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.

Sure, occasion is the father of most that is good in us.

A fool can no more see his own folly than he can see his ears.

We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then! Then was the old world. Stage-coaches, more or less swift, riding-horses, pack-horses, highwaymen, knights in armor, Norman invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, and so forth -- all these belong to the old period. But your railroad starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new time and the old one. We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark.

Life is the soul's nursery.

When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.

Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain!