Some people feel with their heads and think with their hearts.

If nature be regarded as the teacher and we poor human beings as her pupils, the human race presents a very curious picture. We all sit together at a lecture and possess the necessary principles for understanding it, yet we always pay more attention to the chatter of our fellow students than to the lecturer's discourse. Or, if our neighbor copies something down, we sneak it from him, stealing what he himself may have heard imperfectly, and add it to our own errors of spelling and opinion.

The writer who cannot sometimes throw away a thought about which another man would have written dissertations, without worry whether or not the reader will find it, will never become a great writer.

A writer who wishes to be read by posterity must not be averse to putting hints which might give rise to whole books, or ideas for learned discussions, in some corner of a chapter so that one should think he can afford to throw them away by the thousand.

Deliberate virtue is never worth much: The virtue of feeling or habit is the thing.

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

Many are less fortunate than you' may not be a roof to live under, but it will serve to retire beneath in the event of a shower.