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.
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.
The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.
The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave.
Elements of the heroic exist in almost every individual: it is only the felicitous development of them all in one that is rare.
Perhaps the heroic element in our natures is exhibited to the best advantage, not in going from success to success, and so on through a series of triumphs, but in gathering, on the very field of defeat itself, the materials for renewed efforts, and in proceeding, with no abatement of heart or energy, to form fresh designs upon the very ruins and ashes of blasted hopes. Yes, it is this indomitable persistence in a purpose, continued alike through defeat and success, that makes, more than aught else, the hero.
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.
An illusion dissipated is an experience gained.
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.
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.
Hard workers are usually honest; industry lifts them above temptation.
The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in Heaven before unfelt.
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.
The natural wants are few, and easily gratified: it is only those which are artificial that perplex us by their multiplicity.
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.
There are some weaknesses that are peculiar and distinctive to generous characters, as freckles are to a fair skin.
The worst deluded are the self-deluded.
It is easier to die bravely than to live so.
Beauty can afford to laugh at distinctions: it is itself the greatest distinction.
Ambition, in one respect, is like a singer's voice; pitched at too high a key, it breaks and comes to nothing.
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.
A peculiar work in any art must not be too hastily judged. New styles have to create new tastes.
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.
An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.
No work deserves to be criticized that has not much in it that deserves to be applauded.
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