It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavour to its one roast with the burnt souls of many generations.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses.

One has to spend many years in learning how to be happy.

How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice.

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.

trouble always seems heavier when it is only one's thought and not one's bodily activity that is employed about it.