Among all the accomplishments of life none are so important as refinement; it is not, like beauty, a gift of Nature, and can only be acquired by cult….

Our own actions are the accidents of fortune that we sometimes place to the credit of luck or misfortune..

Our leisure is the time the Devil seizes upon to make us work for him; and the only way we can avoid conscription into his ranks is to keep all our l….

In winter we behold the charms of solemn majesty and naked grandeur..

Man's birth is a lottery; it may be in the pleasant home of ease and affluence, or in the hut of poverty; in either case it may be a stain or an hono….

Some few have a natural talent for office-bolding; very many for office-seeking..

An inherent sense of man makes him long for an eternal paradise..

It is a sure sign of a mind not balanced as it ought to be, when it is insensible to the pleasures of the domestic hearth, and to the little joys and….

True loyalty consists not in bowing the knee to earthly greatness, or in heroic deeds to "gild the kingly knave, or garnish out the fool," but in nob….

Dexterity is one of the chief weapons of diplomacy; governments rely more upon the supremacy of this instrument, when in the hands of a skillful dipl….

Let us lend cheerfully, for the time is pretty sure to come when we will wish to borrow..

Books are the beehives of thought; laconics, the honey taken from them..

Maxims are often quoted by those who stand in more need of their application..

The mind paints before the brush..

Twilight is like death; the dark portal of night comes upon us, to open again in the glorious morning of immortality..

A knowledge of general literature is one of the evidences of an enlightened mind; and to give an apt quotation at a fitting time, proves that the min….

The lazy man aims at nothing, and generally hits it..

Literature is the garden of wisdom..

A defeat to a brave man is only a victory deferred..

There is no heart without remorse, no life without some misfortune, no one but what is something stained with sin..

We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our lives..