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.

Bad taste is a species of bad morals.

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.

In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

There is no sense of weariness like that which closes in a day of eager and unintermittent pursuit of pleasure. The apple is eaten, but "the core sticks in the throat." Expectation has then given way to ennui, appetite to satiety.

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.