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If our life be one of toil and of suffering, if the world outside be cold and dreary, what a pleasure to return to the sunshine of happy faces and the warmth of hearts we love.

If we have done our best to do, and to be, we can rest in peace.

Lastly, work secures the rich reward of rest, we must rest to be able to work well, and work to be able to enjoy rest.

Nor can any work, however persevering, or any success, however great, exhaust the prizes of life.

We all admit, though we often forget, the marvellous power of perseverance, and yet all Nature, down to Bruce's spider, is continually impressing this lesson on us.

Work indeed, and hard work, if only it is in moderation, is in itself a rich source of happiness.

Time indeed, is a sacred gift, and each day is a little life.

Time spent in innocent and rational enjoyments, in healthy games, in social and family intercourse, is well and wisely spent.

As life wears on the love of husband or wife, of friends and of children, becomes the great solace and delight of age.

Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope of sharing it hereafter with those we love.

Love is the light and sunshine of life.

Love lasts through life, and adapts itself to every age and circumstance; in childhood for father and mother, in manhood for wife, in age for children, and throughout for brothers and sisters, relations and friends.

Doubt is of two natures, and we often confuse a wise suspension of judgment with the weakness of hesitation.

Most of those who have written in praise of books have thought they could say nothing more conclusive than to compare them to friends.

Some people never seem to appreciate their friends till they have lost them.

For as with the close of the day, so with that of life; there may be clouds, and yet if the horizon is clear, the evening may be beautiful.

To be released from the absorbing affairs of life, to feel that one has earned a claim to leisure and repose, is surely in itself no evil.

Every one must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which sheds its brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make of this world either a palace or a prison.

Moreover, the result in the long run will depend not so much on some single resolution, or on our action in a special case, but rather on the preparation of daily life.

Our duty is to make ourselves useful, and thus life may be most interesting, and yet comparatively free from anxiety.

The body ceases to grow in a few years; but the mind, if we will let it, may grow as long as life lasts.

We love the ticking of the clock, and the flicker of the fire, like the sound of the cawing of rooks, not so much for any beauty of their own as for their associations.

In this way only we can ascertain the bent of our own tastes, for it is a general, though not of course an invariable, rule, that we profit little by books which we do not enjoy.

Many readers miss much of the pleasure of reading by forcing themselves to dwell too long continuously on one subject.

Of all the privileges we enjoy in this nineteenth century there is none, perhaps, for which we ought to be more thankful than for the easier access to books.