As we retain but a faint remembrance of our felicity, it is but fair that the smartest stroke of sorrow should, if bitter, at least be brief.

We cannot learn men from books.

There is scarcely any popular tenet more erroneous than that which holds that when time is slow, life is dull.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.

In art the Greeks were the children of the Egyptians. The day may yet come when we shall do justice to the high powers of that mysterious and imaginative people.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.