It is also important to guard against mistaking for good-nature what is properly good-humor,--a cheerful flow of spirits and easy temper not readily annoyed, which is compatible with great selfishness.

Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.

Trust, therefore, for the overcoming of a difficulty, not to long-continued study after you have once become bewildered, but to repeated trials at intervals.

It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men have dived for them because they fetch a high price.

Reason can no more influence the will, and operate as a motive, than the eyes which show a man his road can enable him to move from place to place, or that a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind.

Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.

It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is unobstructive: without the latter it is deceptive.