A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in museums, just as instruments of torture are now, and the people will be astonished that such a thing could have been.

It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden growth after a victory

The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever.

When grace combines with wrinkles, it is admirable. There is an indescribable light of dawn about intensely happy old age. . . . The young person is handsome, but the old, superb.

The transept belfry and the two towers were to him three great cages, the birds in which, taught by him, would sing for him alone. Yet it was these same bells which had made him deaf; but mothers are often fondest of the child who has made them suffer most.

Civilization survives on the constant discovery of amity and an equal supply of damnation.

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.