A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.

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

More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw.

We must remember how apt man is to extremes--rushing from credulity and weakness to suspicion and distrust.

Genius, the Pythian of the beautiful, leaves its large truths a riddle to the dull.

Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.

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.