He who wins a thousand common hearts is entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero.
It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated.
There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations.
There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.
The tongue is the only instrument that gets sharper with use.
Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.
I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.
It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities between two nations; there exists, more commonly, a previous jealousy and ill will, a predisposition to take offense.
True love will not brook reserve; it feels undervalued and outraged, when even the sorrows of those it loves are concealed from it.
The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages.
By a kind of fashionable discipline, the eye is taught to brighten, the lip to smile, and the whole countenance to emanate with the semblance of friendly welcome, while the bosom is unwarmed by a single spark of genuine kindness and good-will.
One point is certain, that truth is one and immutable; until the jurors all agree, they cannot all be right.
Into the space of one little hour sins enough may be conjured up by evil tongues to blast the fame of a whole life of virtue.
Angling is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and cultivated scenery of England.
After all, it is the divinity within that makes the divinity without...
It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.
Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America, for the universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader.
Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.
Man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.