There are some books and characters so pleasant, or rather which contain so much that is pleasant, that criticism is perplexed or silent. The hounds are perpetually at fault among the sweet-scented herbs and flowers that grow at the base of Etna.

It is only with the best judges that the highest works of art would lose none of their honor by being seen in their rudiments.

Friends should be very delicate and careful in administering pity as medicine, when enemies use the same article as poison.

Nobility of birth is like a cipher; it has no power in itself, like wealth or talent; but, it tells with all the power of a cipher when added to either of the other two.

There is scarcely a man who is not conscious of the benefits which his own mind has received from the performance of single acts of benevolence. How strange that so few of us try a course of the same medicine!

It would be a great advantage to some schoolmasters if they would steal two hours a day from their pupils and give their own minds the benefit of the robbery.

We should remember that it is quite as much a part of friendship to be delicate in its demands as to be ample in its performances.