The more I think of a people calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes of force, and virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes antagonistic in proportion as our civilisation advances - the more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers.

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.

What men want is not talent, it is purpose; in other words, not the power to achieve, but the will to labor.

Leave glory to great folks. Ah, castles in the air cost a vast deal to keep up!

As the films of clay are removed from our eyes, Death loses the false aspect of the spectre, and we fall at last into its arms as a wearied child upon the bosom of its mother.

Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.

Dandies, when first-rate, are generally very agreeable men.