Few footprints of the great remain in the sand before the ever-flowing tide. Long ago it washed out Homer's. Curiosity follows him in vain; Greece an….

The history of men of science has one peculiar advantage, as it shows the importance of little things in producing great results. Smeaton learned his….

It is the empiric who never fails..

It is only dislocated minds whose movements are spasmodic..

We waste the power in impatience which, if, otherwise employed, might remedy the evil..

The advice of a scholar, whose piles of learning were set on fire by imagination, is never to be forgotten. Proportion an hour's reflection to an hou….

Education is the apprenticeship of life.

The ponderous tomes are bales of the mind's merchandise..

Whatever is pure is also simple. It does not keep the eye on itself. The observer forgets the window in the landscape it displays. A fine style gives….

No canvas absorbs colour like memory..

Art, not less eloquently than literature, teaches her children to venerate the single eye. Remember Matsys. His representations of miser-life are bre….

Poetry deserves the honor it obtains as the eldest offspring of literature, and the fairest. It is the fruitfulness of many plants growing into one f….

A discursive student is almost certain to fall into bad company. Ten minutes with a French novel or a German rationalist have sent a reader away with….

Occasionally a single anecdote opens a character; biography has its comparative anatomy, and a saying or a sentiment enables the skilful hand to cons….

Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of t….

History presents the pleasantest features of poetry and fiction,--the majesty of the epic, the moving accidents of the drama, the surprises and moral….

Genius finds its own road and carries its own lamp..

From numberless books the fluttering reader, idle and inconstant, bears away the bloom that only clings to the outer leaf; but genius has its nectari….

One interesting feature of criticism is seen in the ease with which it discovers what Addison called the specific quality of an author. In Livy, it w….

Many books belong to sunshine, and should be read out of doors. Clover, violets, and hedge roses breathe from their leaves; they are most lovable in ….

The amplest knowledge has the largest faith. Ignorance is always incredulous. Tell an English cottager that the belfries of Swedish churches are crim….