Happy is he who looks only into his work to know if it will succeed, never into the times or the public opinion; and who writes from the love of imparting certain thoughts and not from the necessity of sale - who writes always to the unknown friend.

Everything is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour if seen as experience.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.

It is defeat which educates us.

But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes.

The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.

Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.