It is vain to keep a secret from one who has a right to know it. It will tell itself.

If in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature, who would accept the gift of life?

The action of the soul is oftener in that which is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any conversation. It broods over every society, and men unconsciously seek for it in each other.

I always seem to suffer some loss of faith on entering cities.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near.

A nation never falls but by suicide.