The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor.

General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.

What are the publications that succeed? Those that pretend to teach the public that the persons they have been accustomed unwittingly to look up to as the lights of the earth are no better than themselves.

The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others.

We imagine that the admiration of the works of celebrated men has become common, because the admiration of their names has become so.

Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.