All thoughtful men are solitary and original in themselves.

All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover; and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint-Preux standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.

Fastidiousness is only another word for egotism; and all men who know not where to look for truth save in the narrow well of self will find their own image at the bottom, and mistake it for what they are seeking.

Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave.

If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them.

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.