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| A Christian is God Almighty’s gentleman. | 1 |
| A critic should be a pair of snuffers. He is often an extinguisher, and not seldom a thief. | 2 |
| Art is the work of man under the guidance and inspiration of a mightier power. | 3 |
| Children always turn toward the light. | 4 |
| Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little. | 5 |
| Eschew fine words as you would rouge; love simple ones as you would native roses on your cheek. | 6 |
| Examples would indeed be excellent things, were not people so modest that none will set them, and so vain that none will follow them. | 7 |
| Few men are much worth loving in whom there is not something well worth laughing at. | 8 |
| Few persons have courage to appear as good as they really are. | 9 |
| Friendship is love without its flowers or veil. | 10 |
| Handsomeness is the more animal excellence, beauty the more imaginative. | 11 |
| Happy is the boy whose mother is tired of talking nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the sense of it. | 12 |
| He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances. | 13 |
| He must be a thorough fool who can learn nothing from his own folly. | 14 |
| He who does evil that good may come, pays a toll to the devil to let him into heaven. | 15 |
| Heroism is the self-devotion of genius manifesting itself in action. | 16 |
| In oratory the will must predominate. | 17 |
| Instead of watching the bird as it flies above our heads, we chase his shadow along the ground; and, finding we cannot grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing. | 18 |
| Knowledge is the parent of love; wisdom, love itself. | 19 |
| Languages are the barometers of national thought and character. | 20 |
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| Many a man’s vices have at first been nothing worse than good qualities run wild. | 21 |
| Many men spend their lives in gazing at their own shadows, and so dwindle away into shadows thereof. | 22 |
| Many of the supposed increasers of knowledge have only given a new name, and often a worse, to what was well known before. | 23 |
| Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers. | 24 |
| Moral prejudices are the stopgaps of virtue; and, as is the case with other stopgaps, it is often more difficult to get either out or in through them than through any other part of the fence. | 25 |
| Mountains never shake hands. Their roots may touch; they may keep company some way up; but at length they part company, and rise into individual, isolated peaks. So it is with great men. | 26 |
| Much of this world’s wisdom is still acquired by necromancy—by consulting the oracular dead. | 27 |
| Mythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart, for dogmatic theology. | 28 |
| None but a fool is always right. | 29 |
| Nothing good bursts forth all at once. The lightning may dart out of a black cloud; but the day sends his bright heralds before him to prepare the world for his coming. | 30 |
| Nothing is farther than earth from heaven, and nothing is nearer than heaven to earth. | 31 |
| Oratory is a warrior’s eye flashing from under a philosopher’s brow. | 32 |
| Our poetry of the eighteenth century was prose; our prose of the seventeenth, poetry. | 33 |
| Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature. | 34 |
| Poverty breeds wealth, and wealth in its turn breeds poverty. The earth to form the mould is taken out of the ditch; and whatever may be the height of the one will be the depth of the other. | 35 |
| Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honour. | 36 |
| Religion presents few difficulties to the humble, many to the proud, innumerable ones to the vain. | 37 |
| Science sees signs; Poetry, the thing signified. | 38 |
| Smiles are the language of love. | 39 |
| Some people carry their hearts in their heads; very many carry their heads in their hearts. The difficulty is to keep them apart, yet both actively working together. | 40 |
| Some persons take reproof good-humouredly enough, unless you are so unlucky as to hit a sore place. Then they wince and writhe, and start up and knock you down for your impertinence, or wish you good morning. | 41 |
| Song is the tone of feeling. | 42 |
| Strength was the virtue of Paganism; obedience is the virtue of Christianity. | 43 |
| Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of the mercury in the barometer, indicate little else than the changeableness of the weather. | 44 |
| Surely half the world must be blind; they can see nothing unless it glitters. | 45 |
| The greatest truths are the simplest; and so are the greatest men. | 46 |
| The intellect of the wise is like glass; it admits the light of heaven and reflects it. | 47 |
| The power of faith will often shine forth the most when the character is naturally weak. | 48 |
| The ultimate tendency of civilisation is towards barbarism. | 49 |
| There is a glare about worldly success, which is very apt to dazzle men’s eyes. | 50 |
| Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel. | 51 |
| To talk without effort is, after all, the great charm of talking. | 52 |
| To those whose god is honour, disgrace alone is sin. | 53 |
| Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn. | 54 |
| We like slipping, but not falling; our real desire is to be tempted enough. | 55 |
| Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as under adversity; strong and deep ones have two highest tides—when the moon is at the full, and when there is no moon. | 56 |
| What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble, while our hearts are so proud. | 57 |
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