The desire to be the object of public attention is weak, but the excessive dread of it is but a form of vanity and over-self-contemplativeness.

Much waste of words and of thought too would be avoided if disputants would always begin with a clear statement of the question, and not proceed to argue till they had agreed upon what it was that they were arguing about.

I very much wish that some day or other you may have time to learn Greek, because that language is an idea. Even a little of it is like manure to the soil of the mind, and makes it bear finer flowers.

I would have any one, who really and truly has leisure and ability, make verses. I think it a more refining and happy-making occupation than any other pastime accomplishment.

Parents and children cannot be to each other, as husbands with wives and wives with husbands. Nature has separated them by an almost impassable barrier of time; the mind and the heart are in quite a different state at fifteen and forty.

Puns are often unacceptable to the feelings; they come like a spoonful of ice-cream in the midst of a comfortable smoking-hot steak, or as a peppery morsel when your palate was in expectation of a mild pudding.

bubbles of false opinion will last whole ages, and deceive whole generations, till they are broken by some powerful breath, and even then how often they reunite, and again shine in the eyes of men, who hold them solid as cannon-balls!