We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.

The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.

Novels may teach us as wholesome a moral as the pulpit. There are "sermons in stones," in healthy books, and "good in everything.

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.

Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.

Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve; we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.

Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.