The past is perpetual youth to the heart.

charity is a calm, severe duty; it must be intellectual, to be advantageous. It is a strange mistake that it should ever be considered a merit; its fulfillment is only what we owe to each other, and is a debt never paid to its full extent.

There are words to paint the misery of love, but none to paint its happiness.

words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element - the one by which all the others are swayed.

An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.

I do not think that life has a suspense more sickening than that of expecting a letter which does not come.

It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself.