The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

We may like well to know what is Plato’s and what is Montesquieu’s or Goethe’s part, and what thought was always dear to the writer himself; but the worth of the sentences consists in their radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelligence. They fit all our facts like a charm. We respect ourselves the more that we know them.

Obedience alone gives the right to command.

The eye is the painter and the ear the singer.

Nothing can work damage to me except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me and never am a real sufferer except by my own fault.

The most active lives have so much routine as to preclude progress almost equally with the most inactive.

All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view.