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.
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.
Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows – and china.
Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.
Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay.
Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.
There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.
Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.
I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.
The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.
Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.
The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.
Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that.
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.
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.
Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.
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.
We forge the chains we wear in life.
Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!