Wit is an unexpected explosion of thought.

Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.

God is glorified, not by our groans, but our thanksgivings; and all good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer.

A politician weakly and amiably in the right, is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.

The purity of the critical ermine, like that of the judicial, is often soiled by contact with politics.

Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment; imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all.

A true teacher should penetrate to whatever is vital in his pupil, and develop that by the light and heat of his own intelligence.