“The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.”

Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, and insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him.

Blessed are they who know how to shine on one’s gloom with their cheer.

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

Sorrows, as storms, bring down the clouds close to the earth; sorrows bring heaven down close; and they are instruments of cleansing and purifying.

If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road

There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.

A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better.

The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.

Next to victory, there is nothing so sweet as defeat, if only the right adversary overcomes you.

Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

Your greatest pleasure is that which rebounds from hearts that you have made glad.

Find out what your temptations are, and you will find out largely what you are yourself.

You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave.

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.

We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.

A man who cannot get angry is like a stream that cannot overflow, that is always turbid. Sometimes indignation is as good as a thunderstorm in summer, clearing and cooling the air.

The curious crime, the fine Felicity and flower of wickedness.

I often think flowers are the angels’ alphabet whereby they write on hills and fields mysterious and beautiful lessons for us to feel and learn.

The lonely willow slowly withering away, until you walked into its unfortunate meadow flowers miraculously emerge heavenly features surge.

My mother, was perfectly horrified when I began shooting and tried to keep me in school, but I would run away and go quail shooting in the woods or trim my dresses with wreaths of wildflowers.

Cities and Thrones and Powers Stand in Time’s eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die.

In April the sweet showers fall And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all The veins are bathed in liquor of such power As brings about the engendering of the flower.

He might as well plant an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!

I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow.