Proverbs, words, and grammar inflections convey the public sense with more purity and precision, than the wisest individual.

Prayer that craves a particular commodity, anything less than all good, is vicious.

Greatness is a property for which no man gets credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged.

Each man has an aptitude born with him. Do your work.

I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope that it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation.

Fashion which affects to be honor, is often, in all men's experience, only a ballroom-code.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.