It has been well observed that we should treat futurity as an aged friend from whom we expect a rich legacy.

Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.

In answering an opponent, arrange your ideas, but not your words.

It is not so difficult a task as to plant new truths, as to root out old errors

How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy! In youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age we are looking backward to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day when we have time.

Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines.

To be a mere verbal critic is what no man of genius would be if he could; but to be a critic of true taste and feeling is what no man without genius could be if he would.