It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.

Good men have the fewest fears. He has but one great fear who fears to do wrong; he has a thousand who has overcome 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.

Care, admitted as guest, quickly turns to be master.

The beauty seen is partly in him who sees it. [a predisposition to notice the beautiful, in everything.]

Passion looks not beyond the moment of its existence. Better, it says, the kisses of love to day, than the felicities of heaven afar off.

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.