To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.

I never drew a picture of anything that was before me but always from fancy, a sure sign of the absence of artistic eyesight; and I illustrated my lack of real feeling for art by a very early speech: 'Mama,' said I, 'I have drawed a man. Shall I draw his soul now?

Jew storekeepers have already learned the advantage to be gained from this [unlimited credit]: they lead on the farmer into irretrievable indebtedness, and keep him ever after as their bondslave hopelessly grinding in the mill.

Nothing like a little judicious levity.

We should strive to go on in fortune and misfortune like a clock during a thunderstorm.

An aspiration is a joy forever, a possession as solid as a landed estate.

It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathize; so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face.