There is one form of hope which is never unwise, and which certainly does not diminish with the increase of knowledge. In that form it changes its name, and we call it patience.

Youth, with swift feet, walks onward in the way; the land of joy lies all before his eyes.

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

How many of us have been attracted to reason; first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism.

It is often the easiest move that completes the game.

Society is a long series of uprising ridges, which from the first to the last offer no valley of repose. Whenever you take your stand, you are looked down upon by those above you, and reviled and pelted by those below you. Every creature you see is a farthing Sisyphus, pushing his little stone up some Liliputian mole-hill. This is our world.

Vanity, indeed, is the very antidote to conceit; for while the former makes us all nerve to the opinion of others, the latter is perfectly satisfied with its opinion of itself.