Earnestness is the best gift of mental power, and deficiency of heart is the cause of many men never becoming great.

If a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good heart is a letter of credit.

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

Love is rarely a hypocrite; but hate--how detect and how guard against it! It lurks where you least expect it; it is created by causes that you can the least foresee; and civilization multiplies its varieties, whilst it favors its disguise.

Every man who observes vigilantly, and resolves steadfastly, grows unconsciously into genius.

Genius is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose.

In some exquisite critical hints on "Eurythmy," Goethe remarks, "that the best composition in pictures is that which, observing the most delicate laws of harmony, so arranges the objects that they by their position tell their own story." And the rule thus applied to composition in painting applies no less to composition in literature.