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.

Weakness ineffectually seeks to disguise itself,--like a drunken man trying to show how sober he is.

Discretion is the salt, and fancy the sugar of life; the one preserves, the other sweetens it.

Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.

A mother's love is indeed the golden link that binds youth to age; and he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek, or silvered his brow, who can yet recall, with a softened heart, the fond devotion, or the gentle chidings, of the best friend that God gives us.

At the best, sarcasms, bitter irony, scathing wit, are a sort of swordplay of the mind. You pink your adversary, and he is forthwith dead; and then you deserve to be hung for it.

Women seldom forfeit their claims to respect to men whom they respect.