There is no applause that so flatters a man as that which he wrings from unwilling throats.

In its permission to man to render subject to him all other living creatures of the earth, it continued the cruelty of the barbarian and the pagan, and endowed these with what appeared a divine authority.

Charity is a flower not naturally of earthly growth, and it needs manuring with a promise of profit.

A pipe is a pocket philosopher,--a truer one than Socrates, for it never asks questions. Socrates must have been very tiresome, when one thinks of it.

Flowers belong to Fairyland: the flowers and the birds and the butterflies are all that the world has kept of its golden age--the only perfectly beautiful things on earth--joyous, innocent, half divine--useless, say they who are wiser than God.

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look round them.

It needs a great nature to bear the weight of a great gratitude.