The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.

I have heard that, with some persons, temperance _ that is, moderation _ is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children from tasting intoxicating liquors; but a parent__ authority cannot last for ever; children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things; and a child, in such a case, would be likely to have a strong curiosity to taste, and try the effect of what has been so lauded and enjoyed by others, so strictly forbidden to himself _ which curiosity would generally be gratified on the first convenient opportunity; and the restraint once broken, serious consequences might ensue.

I said it was a brutal thing."No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it.

Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a coincidence is just a coincidence.

If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

Love moderately. Long love doth so.Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.*Love each other in moderation. That is the key to long-lasting love. Too fast is as bad as too slow.*