The sun rarely shines in history, what with the dust and confusion; and when we meet with any cheering fact which implies the presence of this luminary, we excerpt and modernize it.

The only sin in the world is ignorance.

Whatever beauty we behold, the more it is distant, serene, and cold, the purer and more durable it is. It is better to warm ourselves with ice than with fire.

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction - a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the muse.

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.

Men must speak English who can write Sanskrit; they must speak a modern language who write, perchance, an ancient and universal one.

I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.