...in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we have eyes yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.

There are errors which no wise man will treat with rudeness while there is a probability that they may be the refraction of some great truth still below the horizon.

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

To carry feelings of childhood into the powers of adulthood, to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day for years has rendered familiar, this is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks which distinguish it from talent.

I feel as if God had, by giving the Sabbath, given fifty-two springs in every year.

A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that in the back of his head.