For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe.

If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,--if onlythat the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not posses.

The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his confidence in the attributes of the intellect.

Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions.

Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.