A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.

Many a man has a kind of a kaleidoscope, where the bits of broken glass are his own merits and fortunes; and they fall into harmonious arrangements, and delight him, often most mischievously and to his ultimate detriment; but they are a present pleasure.

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

The world will tolerate many vices, but not their diminutives.

I do not know any way so sure of making others happy as of being so oneself, to begin with.

Selfishness, when it is punished by the world, is mostly punished because it is connected with egotism.

To hear always, to think always, to learn always, it is thus that we live truly. He who aspires to nothing, who learns nothing, is not worthy of living.