An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.

Humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light.

Grit is the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,--spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man.

Nothing is rarer than the use of a word in its exact meaning.

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.

The eye observes only what the mind, the heart, and the imagination are gifted to see; and sight must be reinforced by insight before souls can be discerned as well as manners, ideas as well as objects, realities and relations as well as appearances and accidental connections.

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