Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.

A man of letters is often a man with two natures,--one a book nature, the other a human nature. These often clash sadly.

Heroism is no extempore work of transient impulse--a rocket rushing fretfully up to disturb the darkness by which, after a moment's insulting radiance, it is ruthlessly swallowed up,--but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flame. It is no sparkling epigram of action, but a luminous epic of character.

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.

Wit is an unexpected explosion of thought.

A writer who attempts to live on the manufacture of his imagination is continually coquetting with starvation.

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