To manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet sheath.

'Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings.

We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.

The sense of an entailed disadvantage - the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite.

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.