Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess.

Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth.

Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth.

God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours. A hundred lights in every temple burn, And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.

The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.

Cats like men are flatterers.