There is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song.  There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living.  Oh, the grave!—­the grave!  It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment!  From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.—­Washington Irving.

                               What is the grave? 
     ’Tis a cool, shady harbor, where the Christian
     Wayworn and weary with life’s rugged road,
     Forgetting all life’s sorrows, joys, and pains,
     Lays his poor body down to rest—­
     Sleeps on—­and wakes in heaven.

Greatness.—­He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.—­Lavater.

The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering.  I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.—­Channing.

Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good,
Though the ungrateful subjects of their favors
Are barren in return. 

          
                          —­Rowe.

Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are the portions of eternity. 
—­Lowell.

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.—­Carlyle.

If the title of great man ought to be reserved for him who cannot be charged with an indiscretion or a vice, who spent his life in establishing the independence, the glory and durable prosperity of his country; who succeeded in all that he undertook, and whose successes were never won at the expense of honor, justice, integrity, or by the sacrifice of a single principle—­this title will not be denied to Washington.—­Sparks.

He only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, passes on like Samson, and “tells neither father nor mother of it.”—­Lavater.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.—­Hazlitt.

In life, we shall find many men that are great, and some men that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.—­Colton.

A really great man is known by three signs,—­generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, and moderation in success.—­Bismarck.

Nothing can make a man truly great but being truly good and partaking of God’s holiness.—­Matthew Henry.