When we hate a person, with an intimate, imaginative, human hatred, we enter into his mind, or sympathize -- any strong interest will arouse the imagination and create some sort of sympathy.

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.

If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.

Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also.

In most cases a favorite writer is more with us in his book than he ever could have been in the flesh; since, being a writer, he is one who has studied and perfected this particular mode of personal incarnation, very likely to the detriment of any other. I should like as a matter of curiosity to see and hear for a moment the men whose works I admire; but I should hardly expect to find further intercourse particularly profitable.

Faith in our associates is part of our faith in God.

To persuade is more trouble than to dominate, and the powerful seldom take this trouble if they can avoid it.