What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?
What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.
Love prefers twilight to daylight.
A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.
There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.
Fresh air is good if you do not take too much of it; most of the achievements and pleasures of life are in bad air.
Don’t flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.
A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!
I like children; I like ’em, and I respect ’em. Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by them.
The Amen of nature is always a flower.
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
Apology is only egotism wrong side out.
Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.
It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
The mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts.