As winter strips the leaves from around us, so that we may see the distant regions they formerly concealed, so old age takes away our enjoyments only to enlarge the prospect of the coming eternity.

Woman and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but the first to rescue when others are in danger.

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.

There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.