Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind.
To most men, experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed.
What begins in fear usually ends in folly.
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions-the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heart-felt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
Facts are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are not even premisses, but in the nature and parts of premisses.
What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.
An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad.
Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing, did certain persons die before they sing.
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose - words in their best order; poetry - the best words in their best order.
He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.
The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
Silence does not always mark wisdom.
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us.
What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in you hand Ah, what then?
Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.
Poetry: the best words in the best order.
Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.
