The traveller must be somebody and come from somewhere, so that his definite character and moral traditions may supply an organ and a point of comparison for his observations.

Culture is on the horns of this dilemma: if profound and noble it must remain rare, if common it must become mean.

Reason and happiness are like other flowers; they wither when plucked.

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.

Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.

If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.

A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness; happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one's life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted.