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not to find friends at a time when you want them is hard, as also not to be able to exchange an inconstant and bad friend for a constant and good one

It also makes for contentedness, when things happen against our wish, not to overlook our many advantages and comforts, but by looking at both good and bad to feel that the good preponderate.

Let us cleanse therefore the fountain of contentedness, which is within us, that so external things may turn out for our good, through our putting the best face on them.

Now the discourse that ought to come from friends and people disposed to be helpful should be consolation, and not mere assent with a man's sad feelings.

the body is weighed down by the burden of what presses on it, but the soul often adds to the real load a burden of its own

the sensible make their life pleasanter and more endurable by mitigating their sorrows with the consideration of their blessings, while most people, like sieves, let the worst things stick to them while the best pass through

If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves.

Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart.

What a perpetual disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted!

Let my soul become enlarged; I am not enough; I am little and contemptible.

We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last.

Amongst ourselves we are unendingly cheerful, but what each man feels in his heart I can only guess.

Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.

One can only say 'God help us!' and plod on our weary way, cold and very miserable, though outwardly cheerful.

Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow.

There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted.

To ask to see some fruit of our endeavour is but a transcendental way of serving for reward; and what we take to be contempt of self is only greed of hire.

All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it.

Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy: Surely not all in vain.

Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun.

It may consist with perpetual failure, and find exercise in the continued chase.

The very flexibility and ease which make men's friendships so agreeable while they endure, make them the easier to destroy and forget.

Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much, who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends.

A long life may be passed without finding a friend in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and sincerity.

Failure in any good cause is, however, honourable, whilst success in any bad cause is merely infamous.