The cities drain the country of the best part of its population: the flower of the youth, of both sexes, goes into the towns, andthe country is cultivated by a so much inferior class. The land,--travel a whole day together,--looks poverty-stricken, and the buildings plain and poor.

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

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

If you visit your friend, why need you apologize for not having visited him, and waste his time and deface your own act? Visit him now.

The human body is a magazine of inventions, the patent office, where are the models from which every hint is taken. All the tools and engines on earth are only extensions of its limbs and senses.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and sotheir house and street life was trivial and commonplace. If you would know their tastes and complexions, the most admiring of their readers most resembles them.

The right eloquence needs no bell to call the people together, and no constable to keep them.