A vacant mind invites dangerous inmates, as a deserted mansion tempts wandering outcasts to enter and take up their abode in its desolate apartments..

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power..

The malignity that never forgets or forgives is found only in base and ignoble natures, whose aims are selfish, and whose means are indirect, cowardl….

For my boyhood's friend hath fallen, the pillar of my trust, The true, the wise, the beautiful, is sleeping in the dust..

The force of selfishness is as inevitable and as calculable as the force of gravitation..

Excellence in art is to be attained only by active effort, and not by passive impressions; by the manly overcoming of difficulties, by patient strugg….

Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises; but with the sunset we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory..

There are no eyes so sharp as the eyes of hatred..

Nothing is more binding than the friendship of companions-in-arms..

There are pictures by Titian so steeped in golden splendors, that they look as if they would light up a dark room like a solar lamp..

Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ewer lived in Rome and then left it, w….

Man is an animal that cannot long be left in safety without occupation; the growth of his fallow nature is apt to run into weeds..

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius..

It may be too much to expect that nations should be governed in their relations towards each other by the precepts of Christian morality, but surely ….

The shadow of human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope..

One might feel indignant at the injustice which deals out what is called fame with so unequal a hand, were it not for the reflection that men who are….

Many persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it..

Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. ….

The instinctive and universal taste of mankind selects flowers for the expression of its finest sympathies, their beauty and their fleetingness servi….

Ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy..

The ruin of most men dates from some idle moment..