ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD

When one by one our ties are torn, and friend from friend is snatched forlorn; when man is left alone to mourn, oh! then how sweet it is to die!

The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and pursue it for life.

The best way for women to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father, a brother, or a friend, in the way of family intercourse and easy conversation, and by such a course of reading as they may recommend.

But every act in consequence of our faith, strengthens faith.

The dead of midnight is the noon of thought.

We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, why then should we pray alone?

Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse.

Of her scorn the maid repented, And the shepherd - of his love.

we should contract our ideas of education, and expect no more from it than it is able to perform.

The world has little to bestow Where two fond hearts in equal love are joined.

Forgotten rimes, and college themes, Worm-eaten plans, and embryo schemes; A mass of heterogeneous matter. A chaos dark, nor land nor water.

if an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect.

We can only love what we know.

Young gentlemen, who are to display their knowledge to the world, should have every motive of emulation, should be formed into regular classes, should read and dispute together, should have all the honors, and, if one may say so, the pomp of learning set before them, to call up their ardor. It is their business, and they should apply to it as such.

You speak of beginning the education of your son. The moment he was able to form an idea his education was already begun. . . .

It is to hope, though hope were lost.

Say not 'Good-night' but in some brighter clime, bid me 'Good-morning.'

We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true.

it is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that a human being can be educated, or even nourished and brought up, without imbibing numberless prejudices from every thing which passes around him.

So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore.

Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?

While Genius was thus wasting his strength in eccentric flights, I saw a person of a very different appearance, named Application.

The awakenings of remorse, virtuous shame and indignation, the glow of moral approbation if they do not lead to action, grow less and less vivid every time they occur, till at length the mind grows absolutely callous.

You, that have toiled during youth, to set your son upon higher ground, and to enable him to begin where you left off, do not expect that son to be what you were, - diligent, modest, active, simple in his tastes, fertile in resources. You have put him under quite a different master. Poverty educated you; wealth will educate him. You cannot suppose the result will be the same.

Englishmen are said to love their laws; - that is the reason, I suppose, they give us so many of them, and in different editions.