Wit implies hatred or contempt of folly and crime, produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise, uses the whip of scorpions and the branding-iron, stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines.

We like the fine extravagance of that philosopher who declared that no man was as rich as all men ought to be.

But the conceit of one's self and the conceit of one's hobby are hardly more prolific of eccentricity than the conceit of one's money. Avarice, the most hateful and wolfish of all the hard, cool, callous dispositions of selfishness, has its own peculiar caprices and crotchets. The ingenuities of its meanness defy all the calculations of reason, and reach the miraculous in subtlety.

Wit is an unexpected explosion of thought.

God is glorified, not by our groans, but by our thanksgivings.

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

Of the three prerequisites of genius; the first is soul; the second is soul; and the third is soul.