Many persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it.

A statesman makes the occasion, but the occasion makes the politician.

The force of selfishness is as inevitable and as calculable as the force of gravitation.

A vacant mind invites dangerous inmates, as a deserted mansion tempts wandering outcasts to enter and take up their abode in its desolate apartments.

Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises; but with the sunset we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory.

The instinctive and universal taste of mankind selects flowers for the expression of its finest sympathies, their beauty and their fleetingness serving to make them the most fitting symbols of those delicate sentiments for which language itself seems almost too gross a medium.

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power.