The only true time which a man can properly call his own, is that which he has all to himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other people’s time, not his.
Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.
The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.
Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book.
What have I gained by health? Intolerable dullness. What by mode meals? A total blank.
Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress.
Not if I know myself at all.
The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, or to contemplate in another, is perhaps cowardice.
We were happier when we were poorer, but we were also younger.
A garden was the primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it.
Gone before To that unknown and silent shore.
Mother’s love grows by giving.
In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from the binding.
Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.
Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.
The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims Tidings of good to Zion.
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Beholding heaven, and feeling hell.
Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime!
If thou would’st have me sing and play As once I play’d and sung, First take this time-worn lute away, And bring one freshly strung.