Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature, and is purifying only in so far as there is a natural and unschooled goodness in the human heart.

It is because of our unassailable enthusiasm, our profound reverence for education, that we habitually demand of it the impossible. The teacher is expected to perform a choice and varied series of miracles.

Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.

An historian without political passions is as rare as a wasp without a sting.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of collapsing when full blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to melt away in the sunshine of a smile.

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.