Success never needs an excuse.

The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy.

Fame confers a rank above that of gentleman and of kings. As soon as she issues her patent of nobility, it matters not a straw whether the recipient be the son of a Bourbon or of a tallow-chandler.

Archaeology is not only the hand maid of history, it is also the conservator of art.

The most delicate beauty in the mind of women is, and ever must be, an independence of artificial stimulants for content. It is not so with men. The links that bind men to capitals belong to the golden chain of civilization,--the chain which fastens all our destinies to the throne of Jove. And hence the larger proportion of men in whom genius is pre-eminent have preferred to live in cities, though some of them have bequeathed to us the loveliest pictures of the rural scenes in which they declined to dwell.

Dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams shall be prophets.

Fiction may be said to be the caricature of history.