Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.

Pride is like the beautiful acacia, that lifts its head proudly above its neighbor plants-forgetting that it too, like them, has its roots in the dirt.

Character is very much a matter of health.

Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.

The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may safely be left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.

Alas, the transports beauty can inspire!

The nearest approximation to an understanding of life is to feel it--to realize it to the full--to be a profound and inscrutable mystery.