The effect of character is always to command consideration. We sport and toy and laugh with men or women who have none, but we never confide in them.

Vanity may be likened to the smooth-skinned and velvet-footed mouse, nibbling about forever in expectation of a crumb; while self-esteem is too apt to take the likeness of the huge butcher's dog, who carries off your steaks, and growls at you as be goes.

I believe that economists put decimal points in their forecasts to show they have a sense of humor.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

I know not that there is anything in nature more soothing to the mind than the contemplation of the moon, sailing, like some planetary bark, amidst a sea of bright azure. The subject is certainly hackneyed; the moon has been sung by poet and poetaster. Is there any marvel that it should be so?

The proverb answers where the sermon fails.

Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought; it is always in advance of its time, and is the pioneer for the generation which it precedes.