[I]f it were admitted that the great object is to read and enjoy a language, and the stress of the teaching were placed on the few things absolutely essential to this result, . . . all might in their own way arrive there, and rejoice in its flowers . . ."

Mothers are the most instinctive philosophers.

"Where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong."

"The longest day must have its close -- the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day."

Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.