We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.

He half retrieves a defeat who yields to it gracefully.

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

I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. "Labor," he in effect said, "is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art." Turning then to another--"And you," I inquired, "what do you consider as the great force in art?" "Love," he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth.

A good thought is indeed a great boon, for which God is to be first thanked; next he who is the first to utter it, and then, in a lesser, but still in a considerable degree, the friend who is the first to quote it to us. Whoever adopts and circulates a just thought, participates in the merit that originated it.

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