A barbarous practice, the inconsistency, folly, and injury of which no words can sufficiently describe.

[Condemning the use of mercurial medicines.]

A fool and a wise man are alike both in the starting-place--their birth, and at the post--their death; only they differ in the race of their lives.

She would never understand her sister. Her sister was like the weather, no, she was worse than the weather. She was like an earthquake that came out of nowhere to shake the world up, but even the tiny tremors, so unpredictable, were a little disorienting. Still, afterward, you were left feeling glad, if only because the ground was no longer shaking.

He that flings dirt at another dirtieth himself the most.

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily . . .

A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.