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.

The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the commonsense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit.

There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.

Pretension is nothing; power is everything.

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

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

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