Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.

What we call vice in our neighbor may be nothing less than a crude virtue. To him who knows nothing more of precious stones than he can learn from a daily contemplation of his breastpin, a diamond in the mine must be a very uncompromising sort of stone.

Our cares are the mothers, not only of our charities And virtues, but of our best joys and most cheering and enduring pleasures.

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 fool is willing to pay for anything but wisdom. No man buys that of which he supposes himself to have an abundance already.

The proverb answers where the sermon fails.

No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.