Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.

Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood?

We must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What business has he with an evil trade?

Of course you will insist on modesty in the children, and respect to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug him!

Language is a city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be credited with the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the coral reef which is the basis of the continent.

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.