Men universally are ungrateful towards him who instructs them, unless, in the hours or in the intervals of instruction, he presents a sweet-cake to their self-love.

Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.

Let me take up your metaphor. Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones, never.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

Truth sometimes corner unawares upon Caution, and sometimes speaks in public as unconsciously as in a dream.

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.