Trifling favors are readily acknowledged, though cheaply esteemed; but important ones are most rarely remembered.

Travelers describe a tree in the island of Java whose pestiferous exhalations blight every tiny blade of grass within the compass of its shade. So it is with despotism.

A human heart is a skein of such imperceptibly and subtly interwoven threads that even the owner of it is often himself at a loss how to unravel it.

Selfishness, if but reasonably tempered with wisdom, is not such an evil trait.

More people laugh at us than with us, however it may appear at the moment.

All papas and mammas have exactly that sort of sight which distinguishes objects at a distance clearly, while they need spectacles to see those under their very noses.

The perception of the beautiful is gradual, and not a lightning revelation; it requires not only time, but some study.