Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.

The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.

Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving.

Sometimes we may learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues.

All the means of action - the shapeless masses - the materials - lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.

Well has it been said that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak.

Joy, temperance, and repose, Slam the door on the doctor's nose.

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought. Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.

Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. In is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and a manly heart.

You know I say just what I think, and nothing more and less. I cannot say one thing and mean another.

Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

Art is a revelation of man; and not merely that, but likewise the revelation of nature, speaking through man.

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.

Music is the universal language of mankind -- poetry their universal pastime and delight.