“Whatever has “wit enough to keep it sweet” defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that outward and visible order which needs no introduction or demonstration at our hands.”

It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.

A dead grief is easier to bear than a live trouble.

Traveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler.

Who that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret?

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.

Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.

The man who never tells an unpalatable truth ‘at the wrong time’ (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured.

Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.

Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.

An appreciation of words is so rare that everybody naturally thinks he possesses it, and this universal sentiment results in the misuse of a material whose beauty enriches the loving student beyond the dreams of avarice.

It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.

English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.

It is unwise to feel too much if we think too little.

It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization.

A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas.

Women, in general, are not part of the corruption of the past, so they can give a new kind of leadership, a new image for mankind.

Government ought to be all outside and no inside. Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.

However corrupt our hearts, and however wicked our past lives, there is hope for us in the Gospel.

Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.

Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything-it can stop the Vietnam War. It can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.

Our body is a vessel of corruption; it is meant for death and for the worms, nothing more! And yet we devote ourselves to satisfying it, rather than to enriching our soul, which is so great that we can conceive nothing greater – no, nothing, nothing!