Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.

Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments.

Language,-human language,-after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature,-sometimes not so adequate.

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.

Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely dramatic representation.

There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow--the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.

What a sweet reverence is that when a young man deems his mistress a little more than mortal and almost chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart.