Adversity is like the period of the rain. . . cold, comfortless, unfriendly to people and to animals; yet from that season have their birth the flower, the fruit, the date, the rose and the pomegranate.

The half hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention... It was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me.

What a strange scene if the surge of conversation could suddenly ebb like the tide, and show us the real state of people's minds.

Stood for his country's glory fast, And nailed her colors to the mast!

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.

The schoolmaster is termed, classically, Ludi Magister, because he deprives boys of their play.

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk.