Always say a kind word if you can, if only that it may come in, perhaps, with singular opportuneness, entering some mournful man's darkened room, like a beautiful firefly, whose happy circumvolutions he cannot but watch, forgetting his many troubles.

We are pleased with one who instantly assents to our opinions, but we love a proselyte.

They tell us that "Pity is akin to Love;" if so, Pity must be a poor relation.

Simple ignorance has in its time been complimented by the names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.

The measure of civilization in a people is to be found in its just appreciation of the wrongfulness of war.

The greatest luxury of riches is that they enable you to escape so much good advice.

Rare almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs; are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in this way, requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an enthusiast who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.