The deafest man can hear praise, and is slow to think any an excess.

We cannot at once catch the applauses of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise.

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment; the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.

If in argument we can make a man angry with us, we have drawn him from his vantage ground and overcome him.

We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone.

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.

That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.