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

There are some weaknesses that are peculiar and distinctive to generous characters, as freckles are to a fair skin.

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

Merit is never so conspicuous as when coupled with an obscure origin, just as the moon never appears so lustrous as when it emerges from a cloud.

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

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

Luminous quotations, also, atone, by their interest, for the dulness of an inferior book, and add to the value of a superior work by the variety which they lend to its style and treatment.