There are situations in which hope and fear run together, in which they mutually destroy one another and lose themselves in dull indifference.

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

And those whom once my song had cheered and gladdened, If still they live, rove through the world now saddened.

In all our academies we attempt far too much. ... In earlier times lectures were delivered upon chemistry and botany as branches of medicine, and the medical student learned enough of them. Now, however, chemistry and botany are become sciences of themselves, incapable of comprehension by a hasty survey, and each demanding the study of a whole life, yet we expect the medical student to understand them. He who is prudent, accordingly declines all distracting claims upon his time, and limits himself to a single branch and becomes expert in one thing.

Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic!

The child, offered the mother's breast, Will not in the beginning grab it; But soon it clings to it with zest. And thus at wisdom's copious breasts You'll drink each day with greater zest.

And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life-- and the friends who are about me whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence.