The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

Great men too often have greater faults than little men can find room for.

What is companionship where nothing that improves the intellect is communicated, and where the larger heart contracts itself to the model and dimension of the smaller?

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

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.

Principles do not mainly influence even the principled; we talk on principle, but we act on interest.

I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness, those that fit the thing.