It was a saying of an ancient philosopher, which I find some of our writers have ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, who perhapsmight havetakenoccasionto repeat it, that a good face is a letter of recommendation.

-Addison,Joseph
  In The Spectator, no.221,13 Nov.

It isgenerally better to deal by speech than by letter.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.47,'Of Negotiating'.

A lone letter from a young man: that is fame.

-Berryman,John originally John Allyn Smith
  'Dream Song No.342'.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hathmade us ableministers of thenew testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Corinthians 3:5^6.

See what a large letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Galatians 6:11.

He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realize,' he said 'The bitterness of life!'

-Dodgson
  Sylvie and Bruno, ch.5.

Next to a letter from home,Captain Miller, your organization is the greatest morale builder in the ETO.

-Doolittle,James Harold
  Of Glenn Miller's wartime band. Comment on stage after a concert for the troops at Wycombe  Abbey, 29  Jul. The words were later attributed to General Eisenhower in the publicity for the film The Glenn Miller Story (1954).

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter- writing.

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  Letter to Mrs Peter Taylor, 8  Jun. Collected in G S Haight (ed)  The George Eliot Letters (1954), vol.2.

You don't knowa womanuntil you have had a letter from her.

-Leverson, Ada
  Tenterhooks, ch.7.

Je n'ai fait plus longue que parce queje n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

-Pascal, Blaise
  Lettres provinciales, letter16.

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him, down the Lachlan, years ago. He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, Just 'on spec', addressed as follows: 'Clancy, of the Overflow'. And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected, (And I think the same was written with a thumbnail dipped in tar) 'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it: 'Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

-Paterson, Banjo (Andrew Barton)
  'Clancy of the Overflow', first published in the Bulletin, collected in The Man from Snowy River and OtherVerses (1895).

Dear Prue, If a servant I sent last night got to Hampton-court, you received 29 walnuts and a letter from me. I inclose the Gazette; and am, with all my soul, Your passionate lover, and faithful husband,

-Stein, Gertrude
RICH. STEELE 1708  Letter, 20 Sep (published1787).