"Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence."

"I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free."

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

"The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you."

"If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."

"It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last."

"Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature."

"He had but one eye and the pocket of prejudice runs in favor of two."

"A person who can't pay gets another person who can't pay to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking-match."

"Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest."

"That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society."

"To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart."

"It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations."

"Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

"Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse."

"Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine."

"The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again."

"'Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby."

"An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself."

"Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine."

"A loving heart is the truest wisdom."

"Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!"

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."

"Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips."

"There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs."

"There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."

"In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice."

"Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!"

"Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!"

"There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk."

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else."

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

"Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs."

"Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire."

"Do you spell it with a "V" or a "W"?' inquired the judge. 'That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord'."

"I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it."

"There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth."

"I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time."

"Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly."

"There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated."

"The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists."

"Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image."

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."

"Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress."

"There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast."

"There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart."

"It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away."

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."

"The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother."

"The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons."