A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.

Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

Memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile.

It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.