Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted, than when we read it in the original author?

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted, than when we read it in the original author?

Avowed work, even when uncongenial, is far less trying to patience than feigned pleasure.

High culture always isolates, always drives men out of their class, and makes it more difficult for them to share naturally and easily the common class-life around them. They seek the few companions who can understand them, and when these are not to be had within a traversable distance, they sit and work alone.

Culture is like wealth; it makes us more ourselves, it enables us to express ourselves

What delights us in the spring is more a sensation than an appearance, more a hope than any visible reality. There is something in the softness of the air, in the lengthening of the days, in the very sounds and odors of the sweet time, that caresses us and consoles us after the rigorous weeks of winter.

Conversation is interesting in proportion to the originality of the central ideas which serve as pivots and the fitness of the little facts and observations which are contributed by the talkers.