Cheerfulness ought to be the viaticum vitae of their life to the old; age without cheerfulness is a Lapland winter without a sun.

A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.

She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the mirage in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys.

Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.

If we trace the history of most revolutions, we shall find that the first inroads upon the laws have been made by the governors, as often as by the governed.

The benevolent have the advantage of the envious, even in this present life; for the envious man is tormented not only by all the ill that befalls himself, but by all the good that happens to another; whereas the benevolent man is the better prepared to bear his own calamities unruffled, from the complacency and serenity he has secured from contemplating the prosperity of all around him.

Shakespeare, Butler and Bacon have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them to be sublime, witty or profound.