If the portraits of our absent friends are pleasant to us, which renew our memory of them and relieve our regret for their absence by a false and empty consolation, how much more pleasant are letters which bring us the written characters of the absent friend.

Tea seems to tenderize cheap cuts of beef. After cooking chuck, boiling beef and brisket (I even mixed rib eye, which is ever so cheap, and it's great) I have decided that the tannic acid in the tea is what tenderizes beef!

We fluctuate long between love and hatred before we can arrive at tranquillity.

the higher the step of advancement, the heavier is the fall.

Frozen peas can be shelled very fast with a wringer-type washer. Put a pan on one side of the wringer to catch the peas and the pods go on through. You will think peas will go through the wringer and be mashed the moment the pod hits the wringer, but they will pop out before they go through. A very fast job can be done this way.

The name of mistress instead of wife would be dearer and more honourable for me, only love given freely, rather than the constriction of the marriage tie, is of significance to an ideal relationship.

When my self is not with you, it is nowhere.

The heart overwhelmed by grief knows no rest.

Prosperity seldom chooses the side of the virtuous.

I am convinced by a sad experience that it is natural to avoid those to whom we have been too much obliged, and that uncommon generosity causes neglect rather than gratitude.

Don't assume you're always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that 'the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.