If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high; but we must remember that men are not angels.

Anger is practical awkwardness.

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

Wealth is a relative thing since those who have little and want less are richer than those who have much but want more.

The press is the foe of rhetoric, but the friend of reason.

Pride differs in many things from vanity, and by gradations that never blend, although they may be somewhat indistinguishable. Pride may perhaps be termed a too high opinion of ourselves founded on the overrating of certain qualities that we do actually possess; whereas vanity is more easily satisfied, and can extract a feeling of self-complacency from qualifications that are imaginary.

Wars of opinion, as they have been the most destructive, are also the most disgraceful of conflicts.