Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.

Genius has no taste for weaving sand.

The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.

The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tablets yet unbroken: The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind.

I may say it of our preposterous use of books,--He knew not what to do, and so he read.

Two sorts of writers possess genius: those who think, and those who cause others to think.