The imagination acquires by custom a certain involuntary, unconscious power of observation and comparison, correcting its own mistakes, and arriving at precision of judgment, just as the outward eye is disciplined to compare, adjust, estimate, measure, the objects reflected on the back of its retina.

Success never needs an excuse.

Bright and illustrious illusions! Who can blame, who laugh at the boy, who not admire and commend him, for that desire of a fame outlasting the Pyramids by which he insensibly learns to live in a life beyond the present, and nourish dreams of a good unattainable by the senses?

O be very sure That no man will learn anything at all, Unless he first will learn humility.

To how many is the death of the beloved the parent of faith!

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

Tell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star did ye drink in your liquid melancholy?