When asked, "What is Hope?" he answered, "The dream of a man awake."
Asked what grows old quickest, he replied, "Gratitude." When told that
some one had slandered him in his absence, he said, "He may beat me
too--in my absence!" Being asked how much advantage the educated have
over the ignorant, he replied, "As much as the living over the dead."
Some one asked him why we spend much time in the society of the
beautiful. "That," he said, "is a proper question for a blind man!"
[_Cf._ Emerson's 'Rhodora.']
Once being asked how we should treat our friends, he said, "As we
would wish them to treat us." Asked what a friend is, he answered,
"One soul abiding in two bodies."