Regrets are idle yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.

There isn't a wife in the world who has not taken the exact measure of her husband, weighed him and settled him in her own mind, and knows him as well as if she had ordered him after designs and specifications of her own

Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do

No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property

What a man needs in gardening is a cast iron back, with a hinge in it

Goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous

I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value