Shame is like the weaver's thread; if it breaks in the net, it is wholly imperfect.

Fortune is said to be blind, but her favorites never are. Ambition has the eye of the eagle, prudence that of the lynx; the first looks through the air, the last along the ground.

Man only of all earthly creatures, asks, Can the dead die forever? - and the instinct that urges the question is God's answer to man, for no instinct is given in vain.

The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe; the poet can call an universe from the atom.

There is a world of science necessary in choosing books. I have known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel, or the last light book in fashion. One might as well take a rose-draught for the plague! Light reading does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am told that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study a science that was new to him. Ah! Goethe was a physician who knew what he was about.

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

Fate whirls on the bark, and the rough gale sweeps from the rising tide the lazy calm of thought.