Time,--the most independent of all things.

Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.

The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.

A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.

Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.

A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man.