He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers,--it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small.

Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.

I am past scorching; not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.

Father Mapple paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.

In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix with tears; and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own.

Delight,--top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.

There is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science,is but a passing fable.