When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.

The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.

Human nature is above all things lazy.

In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike.

A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living in it and leaving it to his children; we shed our houses in America as easily as a snail does his shell.

It’s a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.

One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.

Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.

All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do.

Where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong.

Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.

So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.

Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.

No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.

I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.

I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place.

To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably.

The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.

Friendships are discovered rather than made.

A woman’s health is her capital.