At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles.

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.

The eye of prudence may never shut.

Go into one of our cool churches, and begin to count the words that might be spared, and in most places the entire sermon will go.

The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.

One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace; he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe.

Time is indeed the theater and seat of illusions; nothing is so ductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to an hour.