The most brilliant flashes of wit come from a clouded mind, as lightning leaps only from an obscure firmament.

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.

The knowledge beyond all other knowledge is the knowledge how to excuse.

He that shrinks from the grave with too great a dread, has an invisible fear behind him pushing him into 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 loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.

The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to be able to quote another's wit.