A better principle than this, that "the majority shall rule," is this other, that justice shall rule. "Justice," says the code of Justinian, "is the constant and perpetual desire to render every man his due.

Most books fail, not so much from a want of ability in their authors, as from an absence in their productions of a thorough development of their ability.

The busiest of living agents are certain dead men's thoughts.

It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.

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.

The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.

He half retrieves a defeat who yields to it gracefully.