Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

Heaven sometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and odium, as the burr that protects the fruit.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in company, cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion; all his information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation occasions for the introduction of what he has to say. The favorites of society are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, contended and contenting.

The hero is he who is immovably centered.

Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions, that around us arerushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests.