What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.

The public man needs but one patron, namely, the lucky moment.

In some exquisite critical hints on "Eurythmy," Goethe remarks, "that the best composition in pictures is that which, observing the most delicate laws of harmony, so arranges the objects that they by their position tell their own story." And the rule thus applied to composition in painting applies no less to composition in literature.

Two lives that once part are as ships that divide.

Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear and tear of heart are never recompensed, -it steals away the freshness of life, -it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments, -it shuts our souls to our own youth, -and we are old ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.

Could we know by what strange circumstances a man's genius became prepared for practical success, we should discover that the most serviceable items in his education were never entered in the bills which his father paid for.

What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.