Fancy, an animal faculty, is very different from imagination, which is intellectual. The former is passive; but the latter is active and creative. Children, the weak minded, and the timid are full of fancy. Men and women of intellect, of great intellect, are alone possessed of great imagination.

Living requires but little life; doing requires much.

There are some men who are witty when they are in a bad humor, and others only when they are sad.

Slander is the solace of malignity.

I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men—as base money—the words by which they cheat and are cheated!

The voice is a human sound which nothing inanimate can perfectly imitate. It has an authority and an insinuating property which writing lacks. It is not merely so much air, but air modulated and impregnated with life.

Maxims are to the intellect what laws are to actions; they do not enlighten, but they guide and direct, and, although themselves blind, are protective.