Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter.

Nature is upheld by antagonism.

You have a place to live in this world which no other man can occupy; hence no competitors.

There are faces so fluid with expression, so flushed and rippled by the play of thought, that we can hardly find what the mere features really are. When the delicious beauty of lineament loses its power, it is because a more delicious beauty has appeared, that an interior and durable form has been disclosed.

After thirty, a man wakes up sad every morning, excepting perhaps five or six, until the day of his death.

Fear, when your friends say to you what you have done well, and say it through; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and half-dislike, and must suspend their judgement for years to come, you may begin to hope.

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.