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The Legitimate Aim Of Criticism Is To Direct Attention To The Excellent. The Bad Will Dig Its Own Grave, And The Imperfect May Safely Be Left To That Final Neglect From Which No Amount Of Present Undeserved Popularity Can Rescue It.

-Christian Nestell Bovee

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The Legitimate Aim Of

Christian Nestell Bovee

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The Legitimate Aim Of Criticism Is To Direct Attention To The Excellent. The Bad Will Dig Its Own Grave, And The Imperfect May Safely Be Left To That Final Neglect From Which No Amount Of Present Undeserved Popularity Can Rescue It.

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Life Is Indeed Either A Rich Possession Or A Poor, According As It Is Made Subservient To Noble Aims Or Ignoble Pleasures.

Books Are Embalmed Minds.

Beauty Can Afford To Laugh At Distinctions: It Is Itself The Greatest Distinction.

Vanity In An Old Man Is Charming. It Is A Proof Of An Open, Nature. Eighty Winters Have Not Frozen Him Up, Or Taught Him Concealments. In A Young Person It Is Simply Allowable; We Do Not Expect Him To Be Above It.

Truth, Like The Sun, Submits To Be Obscured; But, Like The Sun, Only For A Time.

No Man Is Happy Without A Delusion Of Some Kind. Delusions Are As Necessary To Our Happiness As Realities.

To Quote Copiously And Well, Requires Taste, Judgment, And Erudition, A Feeling For The Beautiful, An Appreciation Of The Noble, And A Sense Of The Profound.

I Desire To Go Through Life Knowing As Little Of Evil In It As Possible. To This End, I Sometimes Avoid Looking Too Closely Into The Nature Of Things, Studying Them Only So Far As They Seem To Be Good, And Abandoning Interest In Them As Soon As Their Darker Feature Begin To Appear. The Good Only Deserves A Hearty Interest.

The Beauty Seen Is Partly In Him Who Sees It. [a Predisposition To Notice The Beautiful, In Everything.]

The Most Brilliant Flashes Of Wit Come From A Clouded Mind, As Lightning Leaps Only From An Obscure Firmament.

Fortune, Like A Coy Mistress, Loves To Yield Her Favors, Though She Makes Us Wrest Them From Her.

There Are Some Weaknesses That Are Peculiar And Distinctive To Generous Characters, As Freckles Are To A Fair Skin.

As Threshing Separates The Wheat From The Chaff, So Does Affliction Purify Virtue.

The Selection Of A Subject Is To The Author What Choice Of Position Is To The General,--once Skilfully Determined, The Battle Is Already Half Won. Of A Few Writers It May Be Said That They Are Popular In Despite Of Their Subjects--but Of A Great Many More It May Be Observed That They Are Popular Because Of Them.

Discretion Is The Salt, And Fancy The Sugar Of Life; The One Preserves, The Other Sweetens It.

The Legitimate Aim Of Criticism Is To Direct Attention To The Excellent. The Bad Will Dig Its Own Grave.

Every Trait Of Beauty May Be Referred To Some Virtue, As To Innocence, Candor, Generosity, Modesty, Or Heroism. St. Pierre To Cultivate The Sense Of The Beautiful, Is One Of The Most Effectual Ways Of Cultivating An Appreciation Of The Divine Goodness.

Courage Enlarges, Cowardice Diminishes Resources. In Desperate Straits The Fears Of The Timid Aggravate The Dangers That Imperil The Brave.

There Are None So Low But They Have Their Triumphs. Small Successes Suffice For Small Souls.

Six Traits Of Effective Leaders: 1. Make Others Feel Important 2. Promote A Vision 3. Follow The Golden Rule 4. Admit Mistakes 5. Criticize Others Only In Private 6. Stay Close To The Action Example Has More Followers Than Reason. We Unconsciously Imitate What Pleases Us, And Approximate To The Characters We Most Admire.

Men Were Created For Something Better Than Merely To Make Money. A Close Application To Business, Until A Competence Is Gained, Is One Of The Chief Virtues; But To Continue In Trade Long After This Result Is Obtained, Is One Of The Signs, Not To Be Mistaken, Of A Sordid And Ignoble Nature.

Honesty Is Not Only "the First Step Toward Greatness," - It Is Greatness Itself.

The Cheerful Live Longest In Years, And Afterwards In Our Regards. Cheerfulness Is The Off-shoot Of Goodness.

An Ambition To Excel In Petty Things Obstructs The Progress To Nobler Aims.

Bad Taste Is A Species Of Bad Morals.

The Small Courtesies Sweeten Life; The Greater Ennoble It.

Tranquil Pleasures Last The Longest; We Are Not Fitted To Bear The Burden Of Great Joys.

To Cultivate A Garden Is To Walk With God.

We Repose Too Much Upon The Actual, When We Should Be Seeking To Develop The Possibilities Of Our Being. It Is True Of Nearly All Of Us, That What We Have Done Is Little Compared With What We Might Have Accomplished, Or May Hereafter Effect.

Few Minds Wear Out; More Rust Out.

It Is Some Compensation For Great Evils, That They Enforce Great Lessons.

It Is Curious To What A Degree One May Become Attached To A Fine Tree, Especially When It Is Placed Where Trees Are Rare.

The Scope Of An Intellect Is Not To Be Measured With A Tape-string, Or A Character Deciphered From The Shape Or Length Of A Nose.

Justice, Not The Majority, Should Rule.

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches. What Sufficeth It That We Have The Wealth Of The Indies In Our Pockets, If We Have Not The Hope Of Heaven In Our Souls?

All Men Are Alike In Their Lower Natures; It Is In Their Higher Characters That They Differ.

When We Have The Means To Pay For What We Desire, What We Get Is Not So Much What Is Best, As What Is Costliest.

Hard Workers Are Usually Honest; Industry Lifts Them Above Temptation.

Logic Invents As Many Fallacies As It Detects; It Is A Good Weapon, But As Liable To Be Used In A Bad As In A Good Cause.

Something Of A Person's Character May Be Observed By How They Smile. Some Never Smile They Only Grin.

There Are Ceremonious Bows That Repel One Like A Cudgel.

Melancholy Sees The Worst Of Things, Things As They May Be, And Not As They Are. It Looks Upon A Beautiful Face, And Sees But A Grinning Skull.

It Is Our Relation To Circumstances That Determines Their Influence Upon Us.

Who Aspires To Remain Leader Must Keep In Advance Of His Column. His Fear Must Not Play Traitor To His Occasions. The Instant He Falls Into Line With His Followers, A Bolder Spirit May Throw Himself At The Head Of The Movement Initiated, And In That Moment His Leadership Is Gone.

As Many Suffer From Too Much As Too Little.

No Work Deserves To Be Criticized That Has Not Much In It That Deserves To Be Applauded.

It Is Not The Number Of Facts He Knows, But How Much Of A Fact He Is Himself, That Proves The Man.

Most Books Fail, Not So Much From A Want Of Ability In Their Authors, As From An Absence In Their Productions Of A Thorough Development Of Their Ability.

The Less The Difference, The Greater The Quarrel Over It.

It Is One Of The Arts Of A Great Beauty To Heighten The Effect Of Her Charms By Affecting To Be Sweetly Unconscious Of Them.

Activity And Sadness Are Incompatible.

The Legitimate Aim Of Criticism Is To Direct Attention To The Excellent. The Bad Will Dig Its Own Grave, And The Imperfect May Safely Be Left To That Final Neglect From Which No Amount Of Present Undeserved Popularity Can Rescue It.

A Better Principle Than This, That "the Majority Shall Rule," Is This Other, That Justice Shall Rule. "justice," Says The Code Of Justinian, "is The Constant And Perpetual Desire To Render Every Man His Due.

One Must Have Been, At Some Time Or Other, In A Situation Where A Small Sum Was As Necessary Almost As Life Itself, With No More Ability To Raise It Than To Raise The Dead, Before He Can Fully Appreciate The Value Of Money.

The Reveries Of The Dreamer Advance His Hopes, But Not Their Realization. One Good Hour Of Earnest Work Is Worth Them All.

Sensitiveness Is Closely Allied To Egotism; And Excessive Sensibility Is Only Another Name For Morbid Self-consciousness. The Cure For Tender Sensibilities Is To Make More Of Our Objects And Less Of Our Selves.

Without Death In The World, Existence In It Would Soon Become, Through Over-population, The Most Frightful Of Curses.

The Language Denotes The Man. A Coarse Or Refined Character Finds Its Expression Naturally In A Coarse Or Refined Phraseology.

Good Men Have The Fewest Fears. He Has But One Great Fear Who Fears To Do Wrong; He Has A Thousand Who Has Overcome It.

Our Courage Is Greater To Dare A Visible Than An Imagined Danger. A Visible Danger Rouses Our Energies To Meet Or Avert It; A Fancied Peril Appalls From Its Presenting Nothing To Be Resisted. Thus, A Panic Is, Usually, A Sudden Going Over To The Enemy Of Our Imagination. All Is Then Lost, For We Have Not Only To Fight Against That Enemy, But Our Imagination As Well.

In Art There Are Two Principal Schools Between Which Each Aspirant Has To Choose--one Distinguished By Its Close Adherence To Nature, And The Other By Its Strenuous Efforts To Get Above It.

Truth Comes To Us From The Past, As Gold Is Washed Down From The Mountains Of Sierra Nevada, In Minute But Precious Particles, And Intermixed With Infinite Alloy, The Debris Of The Centuries.

Every War Involves A Greater Or Less Relapse Into Barbarism. War, Indeed, In Its Details, Is The Essence Of Inhumanity. It Dehumanizes. It May Save The State, But It Destroys The Citizen.

Galileo Called Doubt The Father Of Invention; It Is Certainly The Pioneer.

Passion Doesn't Look Beyond The Moment Of Its Existence.

In One Important Respect A Man Is Fortunate In Being Poor. His Responsibility To God Is So Much The Less

The Body Of A Sensualist Is The Coffin Of A Dead Soul.

By His Provocations To Good-natured Merriment, A Humorist Of The First Water Contributes As Much To The Sum Of Happiness As The Gravest Philosopher.

A Sound Discretion Is Not So Much Indicated By Never Making A Mistake As By Never Repeating It.

Enthusiasm Is The Inspiration Of Everything Great. Without It No Man Is To Be Feared, And With It None Despised.

It Is Indeed A Misfortune For A Woman To Be Without Beauty, As With Men The Eye Is The Chief Arbiter Of Qualities In The Sex. Her Beauty Is Her Capital--her Worth In The Market Matrimonial Depends Upon It. With Her The Virtues Are Less Reverenced When Unaccompanied By The Graces. The Sex Understand This Very Well; And Hence They Seek Mainly To Make Captive The Eye, Knowing The Mind And Heart Will Follow As A Matter Of Course.

Youth Is The Season Of Receptivity, And Should Be Devoted To Acquirement; And Manhood Of Power--that Demands An Earnest Application. Old Age Is For Revision.

A Great Destiny Needs A Generous Diet.... What Can Be Expected Of A People That Live On Macaroni!

A Particular Disappointment Is Seldom More Than An Excrescence Upon The Trunk Of A General Good--a Shower That Spoils The Pleasure Party, But Refreshes And Enriches The Earth.

Great Warriors, Like Great Earthquakes, Are Principally Remembered For The Mischief They Have Done.

Adhesion To One Idea Is Monomania; To Few, Slavery.

How Like A Railway Tunnel Is The Poor Man's Life, With The Light Of Childhood At One End, The Intermediate Gloom, And Only The Glimmer Of A Future Life At The Other Extremity!

Love Makes A Few Weeks So Rich That All The Rest Of Our Lives Seems Poor In Comparison.

Even When We Fancy We Have Grown Wiser, It Is Only, It May Be, That New Prejudices Have Displaced Old Ones.

The Next Best Thing To Being Witty One's Self, Is To Be Able To Be Able To Quote Another's Wit.

The Worst Deluded Are The Self-deluded.

To No Circumstance Is The Wide Diffusion Of Error In The World More Owing Than To Our Habit Of Adopting Conclusions From Insufficiently Established Data. An Indispensable Preliminary, Then, In Every Investigation, Is To Get At Facts. Until These Are Arrived At, Every Opinion, Theory, Or System, However Ingeniously Framed, Must Necessarily Rest Upon An Uncertain Basis.

The Opinions Of The Misanthropical Rest Upon This Very Partial Basis, That They Adopt The Bad Faith Of A Few As Evidence Of The Worthlessness Of All.

There Is Probably No Hell For Authors In The Next World - They Suffer So Much From Critics And Publishers In This.

The Lively And Mercurial Are As Open Books, With The Leaves Turned Down At The Notable Passages. Their Souls Sit At The Windows Of Their Eyes, Seeing And To Be Seen.

Excessive Sensibility Is Only Another Name For Morbid Self-consciousness.

Rejecting The Miracles Of Christ, We Still Have The Miracle Of Christ Himself.

Complaint Is. More Contemptible Than Pitiful.

Our First And Last Love Is Self-love.

Funny Valentines Day

Example Has Far More Followers Than Reason.

All Good Writing Leaves Something Unexpressed.

When We Get Tired Of Enjoying All The Pleasures Within Our Reach, We Have Still A Resource In Thinking Of Others That Are Not.

A Mother's Love Is Indeed The Golden Link That Binds Youth To Age; And He Is Still But A Child, However Time May Have Furrowed His Cheek, Or Silvered His Brow, Who Can Yet Recall, With A Softened Heart, The Fond Devotion, Or The Gentle Chidings, Of The Best Friend That God Gives Us.

Neither Love Nor Ambition, As It Has Often Been Shown, Can Brook A Division Of Its Empire In The Heart.

The Highest Excellence Is Seldom Attained In More Than One Vocation. The Roads Leading To Distinction In Separate Pursuits Diverge, And The Nearer We Approach The One, The Farther We Recede From The Other.

Dignity Of Position Adds To Dignity Of Character, As Well As To Dignity Of Carriage. Give Us A Proud Position, And We Are Impelled To Act Up To It.

At The Best, Sarcasms, Bitter Irony, Scathing Wit, Are A Sort Of Swordplay Of The Mind. You Pink Your Adversary, And He Is Forthwith Dead; And Then You Deserve To Be Hung For It.

There Is Great Beauty In Going Through Life Without Anxiety Or Fear. Half Our Fears Are Baseless, And The Other Half Discreditable.

Examples Are Few Of Men Ruined By Giving.

In Politics, Merit Is Rewarded By The Possessor Being Raised, Like A Target, To A Position To Be Fired At.

Example Has More Followers Than Reason. We Unconsciously Imitate What Pleases Us, And Approximate To The Characters We Most Admire.

Men, Like Musical Instruments, Seem Made To Be Played Upon.

It May Almost Be Held That The Hope Of Commercial Gain Has Done Nearly As Much For The Cause Of Truth As Even The Love Of Truth.

Nature Has Provided For The Exigency Of Privation, By Putting The Measure Of Our Necessities Far Below The Measure Of Our Wants. Our Necessities Are To Our Wants As Falstaff's Pennyworth Of Bread To His Any Quantity Of Sack.

It Is Of Very Little Use In Trying To Be Dignified, If Dignity Is No Part Of Your Character.

Alas, The Transports Beauty Can Inspire!

Pride Is Like The Beautiful Acacia, That Lifts Its Head Proudly Above Its Neighbor Plants-forgetting That It Too, Like Them, Has Its Roots In The Dirt.

The Loss Of A Beloved Connection Awakens An Interest In Heaven Before Unfelt.

The Heart Contracts As The Pocket Expands.

We Make Way For The Man Who Boldly Pushes Past Us.

We May Learn From Children How Large A Part Of Our Grievances Is Imaginary. But The Pain Is Just As Real.

A Mother Is The Best Friend God Ever Gave.

Funny Inspirational

Many An Honest Man Practices Upon Himself An Amount Of Deceit Sufficient, If Practised Upon Another, And In A Little Different Way, To Send Him To The State Prison.

I Once Asked A Distinguished Artist What Place He Gave To Labor In Art. "labor," He In Effect Said, "is The Beginning, The Middle, And The End Of Art." Turning Then To Another--"and You," I Inquired, "what Do You Consider As The Great Force In Art?" "love," He Replied. In Their Two Answers I Found But One Truth.

Four Sweet Lips, Two Pure Souls, And One Undying Affection, - These Are Love's Pretty Ingredients For A Kiss.

Wine Is A Treacherous Friend Who You Must Always Be On Guard For.

Poverty Is Only Contemptible When It Is Felt To Be So. Doubtless The Best Way To Make Our Poverty Respectable Is To Seem Never To Feel It As An Evil.

The Extent Of Poverty In The World Is Much Exaggerated. Our Sensitiveness Makes Half Our Poverty; Our Fears--anxieties For Ills That Never Happen--a Greater Part Of The Other Half.

New Situations Inspire New Thoughts. Here Is The Benefit Of Travelling, Much More Than In Mere Sight-seeing. We Lose Ourselves In The Streets Of Our Own City, And Go Abroad To Find Ourselves.

Affliction, Like The Iron-smith, Shapes As It Smites.

The Nearest Approximation To An Understanding Of Life Is To Feel It--to Realize It To The Full--to Be A Profound And Inscrutable Mystery.

The Natural Wants Are Few, And Easily Gratified: It Is Only Those Which Are Artificial That Perplex Us By Their Multiplicity.

We Should Not So Much Esteem Our Poverty As A Misfortune, Were It Not That The World Treats It So Much As A Crime

Hunger And Poverty

A Failure Establishes Only This, That Our Determination To Succeed Was Not Strong Enough.

Courage Enlarges, Cowardice Diminishes Resources.

"there Is Nothing," Says A Correspondent Of The New York Times, "which The Business World Discards As Unpractical And Useless So Much As The Quiet, Thinking Scholar. But This Is The Man Who Makes Revolutions. Politicians Are Mere Puppets In The Hands Of Men Of Thought.

It Is Safer To Quote What Is Written Than What Is Spoken. What A Man Writes It Is Fair To Presume He Believes As A Matter Of General Conviction, But It Is Not So With What He Utters In The Freedom Of Conversation. In That He May Only Express The Feeling Of The Moment, And Not His Settled Judgment, Or Matured Opinion.

Genius Makes Its Observations In Short-hand; Talent Writes Them Out At Length.

Nothing Is So Fragile As Thought In Its Infancy; An Interruption Breaks It: Nothing Is So Powerful, Even To Overturning Empires, When It Reaches Its Maturity.

He That Shrinks From The Grave With Too Great A Dread, Has An Invisible Fear Behind Him Pushing Him Into It.

Ideas Are Like Matter, Infinitely Divisible. It Is Not Given To Us To Get Down So To Speak To Their Final Atoms, But To Their Molecular Groupings-the Way Is Never Ending And The Progress Infinitely Delightful And Profitable.

We Cannot Reason Ourselves Into Love, Nor Can We Reason Ourselves Out Of It, Which Suggests That Love And Reason Have Little To Do With Each Other.

Earth Took Her Shining Station As A Star, In Heaven's Dark Hall, High Up The Crowd Of Worlds.

Motives Are Better Than Actions. Men Drift Into Crime. Of Evil They Do More Than They Contemplate, And Of Good They Contemplate More Than They Do.

Formerly When Great Fortunes Were Only Made In War, War Was A Business; But Now, When Great Fortunes Are Only Made By Business, Business Is War.

No Single Character Is Ever So Great That A Nation Can Afford To Form Itself Upon It. Imitation Belittles. This Appears In The Instance Of The Chinese. The Chinese Are So Many Confucii; In Miniature. And So With The Jews. Moses, The Lawgiver, Is Poorly Represented By Moses, The Old Clothesman ; Or Even By Dives, The Hanker.

Resentments, Carried Too Far, Expose Us To A Fate Analogous To That Of The Fish-hawk, When He Strikes His Talons Too Deep Into A Fish Beyond His Capacity To Lift, And Is Carried Under And Drowned By It.

None But Those Who Have Loved Can Be Supposed To Understand The Oratory Of The Eye, The Mute Eloquence Of A Look, Or The Conversational Powers Of The Face. Love's Sweetest Meanings Are Unspoken; The Full Heart Knows No Rhetoric Of Words, And Resorts To The Pantomime Of Sighs And Glances.

Next To Being Witty, The Best Thing Is Being Able To Quote Another's Wit.

Mortal Beauty Stings While It Delights.

What We Call Conscience In Many Instances, Is Only A Wholesome Fear Of The Law.

Out Of Politics Comes More Uproar Than Progress. It Is Indeed Surprising How Little, Comparatively, This Noisy Department Of Human Affairs Contributes To The World's Prosperity. Political Commotions Upon The Grandest Scale, Political Events Of Astounding Suddenness, Political Characters Of The Greatest Ability, Abound, But Still, Permanent Results Are Rare, And We Look In Vain For A Measure Of Public Good Corresponding In Extent To The Hideous Rout Which Ushers It In. Progress But Turns Upon Its Pillow, And Goes To Sleep Again.

The First Step Toward Greatness Is To Be Honest, Says The Proverb; But The Proverb Fails To State The Case Strong Enough. Honesty Is Not Only "the First Step Toward Greatness," - It Is Greatness Itself.

A Woman's Love, Like Lichens Upon A Rock, Will Still Grow Where Even Charity Can Find No Soil To Nurture Itself.

Love's Sweetest Meanings Are Unspoken; The Full Heart Knows No Rhetoric Of Words.

If It Is A Distinction To Have Written A Good Book, It Is Also A Disgrace To Have Written A Bad One.

Sorrow Is Never More Sorrowful Than When It Jests At Its Own Misery.

Doubt Whom You Will, But Never Yourself.

Intellectually, As Politically, The Direction Of All True Progress Is Towards Greater Freedom, And Along An Endless Succession Of Ideas.

Marriage, By Making Us More Contented, Causes Us Often To Be Less Enterprising.

There Is, Indeed, No Wild Beast More To Be Dreaded Than A Communicative Man Having Nothing To Communicate.

Wit, Like Poetry, Is Insusceptible Of Being Constructed Upon Rules Founded Merely In Reason. Like Faith, It Exists Independent Of Reason, And Sometimes In Hostility To It.

Tearless Grief Bleeds Inwardly.

Losing A Loved One

There Would Not Be So Much Harm In The Giddy Following The Fashions, If Somehow The Wise Could Always Set Them.

The Beauty Of A Woman Transcends All Other Forms Of Beauty, As Well In The Sweetness Of Its Suggestions, As In The Fervor Of The Admiration It Awakens. The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is An Inspiration, A Sweet Delirium, A Gentle Madness. Her Looks Are Love-potions. Heaven Itself Is Never So Clearly Revealed To Us As In The Face Of A Beautiful Woman.

We Take Life Too Seriously: The Office Of Wit Is To Correct This Tendency.

It Is Difficult To Say Which Is The Greatest Evil--to Have Too Violent Passions, Or To Be Wholly Devoid Of Them. Controlled With Firmness, Guided By Discretion, And Hallowed By The Imagination, The Passions Are The Vivifiers And Quickeners Of Our Being. Without Passion There Can Be No Energy Of Character. Indeed, The Passions Are Like Fire, Useful In A Thousand Ways, And Dangerous Only In One--through Their Excess.

We Should Round Every Day Of Stirring Action With An Evening Of Thought. We Learn Nothing Of Our Experience Except We Muse Upon It.

The Questions Most Furiously Discussed Are Those Which Have In Them A Basis Of Truth, And Yet A Large Admixture Of Errors. We Inconsiderately Take Hold Of, And Mistakingly Support Or Oppose Them, As Either Wholly True Or Wholly False.

Partial Culture Runs To The Ornate, Extreme Culture To Simplicity.

Silence, When Nothing Need Be Said, Is The Eloquence Of Discretion.

The Great Artist Is A Slave To His Ideals.

Whether One Talks Well Depends Very Much Upon Whom He Has To Talk To.

There Is Something In The Character Of Every Man Which Cannot Be Broken In--the Skeleton Of His Character; And To Try To Alter This Is Like Training A Sheep For Draught Purposes. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Reflections Of Lichtenberg We Become Familiar With The Outsides Of Men, As With The Outsides Of Houses, And Think We Know Them, While We Are Ignorant Of So Much That Is Passing Within Them.

Character Is Very Much A Matter Of Health.

The Great Obstacle To Progress Is Prejudice

Weakness Ineffectually Seeks To Disguise Itself,--like A Drunken Man Trying To Show How Sober He Is.

In A Contest With A Weaker Party It Is More Honorable To Yield Than To Force Concession. Magnanimity Becomes The Strong.

It Is Invidious To Distinguish Particular Men As Adventurers: We Are All Such.

The Breath Becomes A Stone; The Stone, A Plant; The Plant, An Animal; The Animal, A Man; The Man, A Spirit; And The Spirit, A God.

Common Sense, Alas In Spite Of Our Educational Institutions, Is A Rare Commodity.

The Trouble With Men Of Sense Is That They Are So Dreadfully In Earnest All The While.

The Greatest Happiness Comes From The Greatest Activity.

The Knowledge Beyond All Other Knowledge Is The Knowledge How To Excuse.

In The Assurance Of Strength There Is Strength; And They Are The Weakest, However Strong, Who Have No Faith In Themselves Or Their Powers.

Care, Admitted As Guest, Quickly Turns To Be Master.

When All Else Is Lost, The Future Still Remains.

The Very Cunning Conceal Their Cunning; The Indifferently Shrewd Boast Of It.

Better Freedom With A Crust, Than Slavery With Every Luxury.

The Finest Compliment That Can Be Paid To A Woman Of Sense Is To Address Her As Such.

Like The Withered Roses Of A Once Gay Garland, The Feelings Of Youth Command In Age A Melancholy Interest.

Words, Like Cannon Balls, Should Go Direct To Their Mark.

We Absolve A Friend From Gratitude When We Remind Him Of A Favor.

He Half Retrieves A Defeat Who Yields To It Gracefully.

The Method Of The Critic Is To Balance Praises With Censure, And Thus To Do Justice To The Subject And--his Own Discrimination.

Age, That Acquaints Us With Infirmities In Ourselves, Should Make Us Tender In Our Reprehension Of Weakness Elsewhere.

Life Being Full Of Harsh Realities, We Seek Relief From Them In A Variety Of Pleasing Delusions.

The Light In The World Comes Principally From Two Sources,-the Sun, And The Student's Lamp.

Hunting Is A Relic Of The Barbarism That Once Thirsted For Human Blood, But Is Now Content With The Blood Of Animals.

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches.

Woman's Power Is Over The Affections. A Beautiful Dominion Is Hers; But She Risks Its Forfeiture When She Seeks To Extend It.

We Trifle When We Assign Limits To Our Desires, Since Nature Hath Set None.

Cheerfulness Is An Offshoot Of Goodness And Of Wisdom.

All Power Is Indeed Weak Compared With That Of The Thinker. He Sits Upon The Throne Of His Empire Of Thought, Mightier Far Than They Who Wield Material Sceptres.

Pure Motives Do Not Insure Perfect Results.

Ambition, In One Respect, Is Like A Singer's Voice; Pitched At Too High A Key, It Breaks And Comes To Nothing.

Enthusiasm Is The Inspiration Of Everything Great.

Enthusiasm For Life

The Passions Are Like Fire, Useful In A Thousand Ways And Dangerous Only In One, Through Their Excess.

It Is In Vain That He Seeks Dominion Abroad, Who Is Not Kingly At Home.

The Busiest Of Living Agents Are Certain Dead Men's Thoughts.

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