On the church vaulting above was the clock-face of eternity, void of number and serving as its own hand, only one black finger was pointing and the dead wanted to tell the time by it.
Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in bearing it.
Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.
Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it.
There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.
We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.
Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.
Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.
Good actions ennoble us, we are the sons of our own deeds.
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations.
Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest.
Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account?
It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them.
Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept - and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.
Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.
The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.
Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.
Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.
