Ideas are like matter, infinitely divisible. It is not given to us to get down so to speak to their final atoms, but to their molecular groupings-the way is never ending and the progress infinitely delightful and profitable...
Love’s sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words.
Many an honest man practices upon himself an amount of deceit sufficient, if practised upon another, and in a little different way, to send him to the state prison.
Men, like musical instruments, seem made to be played upon.
It is only an error in judgment to make a mistake, but it shows infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.
It is some compensation for great evils, that they enforce great lessons.
Pleasure and pain spring not so much from the nature of things, as from our manner of considering them in particular, what we compare them to.
The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may safely be left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.
Examples are few of men ruined by giving.
The greatest happiness comes from the greatest activity.
Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.
The cheerful live longest in years, and afterwards in our regards. Cheerfulness is the off-shoot of goodness.
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world – they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
Every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, or heroism. St. Pierre To cultivate the sense of the beautiful, is one of the most effectual ways of cultivating an appreciation of the divine goodness.
There will always be romance in the world so long as there are young hearts in it.
The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.
Women seldom forfeit their claims to respect to men whom they respect.
Common sense, alas in spite of our educational institutions, is a rare commodity.
There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.
The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.