If there be any one habit which more than another is the dry rot of all that is high and generous in youth, it is the habit of ridicule.

One of the greatest of all mental pleasures is to have our thoughts often divined: ever entered into with sympathy.

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.

to the many, witticisms not only require to be explained, like riddles, but are also like new shoes, which people require to wear many times before they get accustomed to them.

The heart's hushed secret in the soft dark eye.

Sneering springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be that wishes to take refuge in doubt.

In marriage, as in chemistry, opposites have often an attraction.