“If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you home again
“There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern - why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
“Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts
“Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us; footprints on the sands of time.
“Death is not a journey into an unknown land; it is a voyage home. We are going, not to a strange country, but to our fathers house.
“Good-night! Good-night! as we so oft have said beneath this roof at midnight, in the days that are no more, and shall no more return. Thou has but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed; I stay a little longer, as one stays to cover up the embers that still burn.
“And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles in your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.
“It behooves us to accomplish what God requires of us, even when we are in the greatest despair respecting the results
“Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys
“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.
“let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, though all things pass, God does not change. Patience wins all things. But he lacks nothing who possesses God; for God alone suffices.