The essence of the ludicrous consists in surprise,--in unexpected terms of feeling and explosions of thought,--often bringing dissimilar things together with a shock; as when some wit called Boyle, the celebrated philosopher, the father of chemistry and brother of the Earl of Cork.

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

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

The bitterest satires and noblest eulogies on married life have come from poets.

Every style formed elaborately on any model must be affected and straight-laced.

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.

No education deserves the name unless it develops thought, unless it pierces down to the mysterious spiritual principle of mind, and starts that into activity and growth.