Little men build up great ones, but the snow colossus soon melts; the good stand under the eye of God, and therefore stand.

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife.

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else; and yet hardly can that be called ours, which comes without our knowledge, and goes without it.

Vast objects of remote altitude must be looked at a long while before they are ascertained. Ages are the telescope tubes that must be lengthened out for Shakespeare; and generations of men serve but a single witness to his claims.

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

Cruelty is the highest pleasure to the cruel man; it is his love.