If we are long absent from our friends, we forget them; if we are constantly with them, we despise them.

From the height from which the great look down on the world all the rest of mankind seem equal.

We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear: we are torn from ourselves while living.

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.

Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it.

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.