Better than fame is still the wish for fame, the constant training for a glorious strife.

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

If aught be worse than failure from overstress of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success.

As a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sinner; and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, snivelling bit of saintship about him which is enough to make him a humbug.

Ere yet we yearn for what is out of our reach, we are still in the cradle. When wearied out with our yearnings, desire again falls asleep; we are on the death-bed.

In one of the Welsh counties is a small village called A-----. It is somewhat removed from the high road, and is, therefore, but little known to those luxurious amateurs of the picturesque, who view nature through the windows of a carriage and four.

Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed.