When a man is not amused, he feels an involuntary contempt for those who are.

Imitation, if noble and general, insures the best hope of originality.

Emulation, even in brutes, is sensitively "nervous." See the tremor of the thoroughbred racer before he starts. The dray-horse does not tremble, but he does not emulate. It is not his work to run a race. Says Marcus Antoninus, "It is all one to a stone whether it be thrown upward or downward." Yet the emulation of a man of genius is seldom with his contemporaries, that is, inwardly in his mind, although outwardly in his act it would seem so. The competitors with whom his secret ambition seems to vie are the dead.

In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.

Keep we to the broad truths before us; duty here; knowledge comes alone in the Hereafter.

To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.

Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle at the onset.