There is ever a slight suspicion of the burlesque about earnest good men.

In a virtuous action, I properly am; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon.

We sometimes meet an original gentleman, who, if manners had not existed, would have invented them.

Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.

I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.

The populace drags down the gods to their own level.

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.