Cheerfulness in most cheerful people is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous discipline.

Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic and he true, by whose light it surveys and shape s their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the space which separates the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble.

Genius may be almost defined as the faculty of acquiring poverty.

Nature and society are so replete with startling contrasts that wit often consists in the mere statement and comparison of facts, as when Hume says that the ancient Muscovites wedded their wives with a whip instead of a ring.

True wisdom, indeed, springs from the wide brain which is fed from the deep heart; and it is only when age warms its withering conceptions at the memory of its youthful fire, when it makes experience serve aspiration, and knowledge illumine the difficult paths through which thoughts thread their way into facts,--it is only then that age becomes broadly and nobly wise.

Sin, every day, takes out a patent for some new invention.

Cervantes shrewdly advises to lay a bridge of silver for a flying enemy.