Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour and is not reminded of the flux of all things?

Invention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph devised than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found. The aeronaut is provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants for his balloon.

Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at right time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame.

I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.

Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of someone's mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers