Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.

Neither love nor ambition, as it has often been shown, can brook a division of its empire in the heart.

Example has far more followers than reason.

To death we owe our life; the passing of one generation opens a way for another.

Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work; a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will; a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words.

An eager pursuit of fortune is inconsistent with a severe devotion to truth. The heart must grow tranquil before the thought can become searching.

The greatest events of an age are its best thoughts. Thought finds its way into action.