The most delicate beauty in the mind of women is, and ever must be, an independence of artificial stimulants for content. It is not so with men. The links that bind men to capitals belong to the golden chain of civilization,--the chain which fastens all our destinies to the throne of Jove. And hence the larger proportion of men in whom genius is pre-eminent have preferred to live in cities, though some of them have bequeathed to us the loveliest pictures of the rural scenes in which they declined to dwell.

The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.

Centuries roll, customs change, but, ever since the time of the earliest mother, woman yearns to be the soother.

But never yet the dog our country fed, Betrayed the kindness or forgot the bread.

The more a man desirous to pass at a value above his worth can contrast, by dignified silence, the garrulity of trivial minds, the more the world will give him credit for the wealth which he does not possess.

People praise us behind our backs, but we hear them not; few before our faces, and who is not suspicious of the truth of such praise?

The fewer blows, the better. Brave men fight if they must; wise men never fight if they can help it.