Solitude is the audience-chamber of God.

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.

We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone.

If in argument we can make a man angry with us, we have drawn him from his vantage ground and overcome him.

The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

An ingenious mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof.