Society is infected with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and whom no public opinion concentrated into good manners, forms accepted by the sense of all, can reach; the contradictors and railers at public and private tables, who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a dog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house by barking him out of sight.

We wake from one dream into another dream.

Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth.

Coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities.

And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.

The Italians are fond of red clothes, peacock plumes, and embroidery; and I remember one rainy morning in the city of Palermo, the street was ablaze with scarlet umbrellas.