A human heart can never grow old, if it takes a lively interest in the pairing of birds, the reproduction of flowers, and the changing tints of autumn leaves. [ Mrs. L. M. Child ]

Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the best flower of civilisation, and the best result which life has to offer us--a cup for gods, which has no repentance. Conversation is our account of ourselves. All we have, all we can, all we know is brought into play, and as the reproduction, in finer form, of all our havings. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending, - the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]