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.

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.

Woman's power is over the affections. A beautiful dominion is hers; but she risks its forfeiture when she seeks to extend it.

There will always be romance in the world so long as there are young hearts in it.

Nature has provided for the exigency of privation, by putting the measure of our necessities far below the measure of our wants. Our necessities are to our wants as Falstaff's pennyworth of bread to his any quantity of sack.

The extent of poverty in the world is much exaggerated. Our sensitiveness makes half our poverty; our fears--anxieties for ills that never happen--a greater part of the other half.