Of all intellectual friendships, none are so beautiful as those which subsist between old and ripe men and their younger brethren in science or literature or art. It is, by these private friendships, even more than by public performance, that the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is perpetuated from age to age.

I wonder how it is that so cheerful-looking a tree as the willow should ever have become associated with ideas of sadness.

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.

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.

There are natures that go to the streams of life in great cities as the hart goes to the water brooks.

People have prejudices against a nation in which they have no acquaintances.

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.