I suppose every day of earth, with its hundred thousand deaths and something more of births,--with its loves and hates, its triumphs and defeats, its pangs and blisses, has more of humanity in it than all the books that were ever written, put together.

I believe the flowers growing at this moment send up more fragrance to heaven than was ever exhaled from all the essences ever distilled.
-- Don't I read up various matters to talk about at this table or elsewhere ?--No, that is the last thing I would do.

I will tell you my rule.

Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but recently.

Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used, till they are seasoned.
-- Physiologists and metaphysicians have had their attention turned a good deal of late to the automatic and involuntary actions of the mind.