The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it.

Our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots.

The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion.

Man hazards the condition and loses the virtues of a freeman, in proportion as he accustoms his thoughts to view without anguish or shame, his lapse into the bondage of debtor.

One of the surest evidences of friendship that one individual can display to another is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratitude, and amending the error.

A woman too often reasons from her heart; hence two-thirds of her mistakes and her troubles.

Midnight, and love, and youth, and Italy!