I don't pretend to any exemption from the general lot of parental delusion-I mean that like most other parents I see my child through an atmosphere which illuminates, magnifies, and at the same time refines the object to a degree that amounts to a delusion.

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.

there is nothing so uncertain and slippery as fact.

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.

avarice is especially, I suppose, a disease of the imagination.

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.

Life is the steam of the corporeal engine; the soul is the engineer who makes use of the steam-quickened engine.