It is noticeable how intuitively in age we go back with strange fondness to all that is fresh in the earliest dawn of youth. If we never cared for little children before, we delight to see them roll in the grass over which we hobble on crutches. The grandsire turns wearily from his middle-aged, careworn son, to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees; it is the old who are most saddened by the autumn; and feel most delight in the returning spring.

Toil to some is happiness, and rest to others. This man can only breathe in crowds, and that man only in solitudes.

He that fancies himself very enlightened, because he sees the deficiencies of others, may be very ignorant, because he has not studied his own.

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature the oldest.

When one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be.

The classic literature is always modern.

In every civilized society there is found a race of men who retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal and live upon their fellow-men as a natural food.