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.

Books are embalmed minds.

Our first and last love is self-love.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

Vanity in an old man is charming. It is a proof of an open, nature. Eighty winters have not frozen him up, or taught him concealments. In a young person it is simply allowable; we do not expect him to be above it.

It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence upon us.

A genuine passion is like a mountain stream; it admits of no impediment; it cannot go backward; it must go forward.