Beware of him who hates the laugh of a child.

We sometimes laugh from ear to ear, but it would be impossible for a smile to be wider than the distance between our eyes.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.

Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they?

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

Grammar and logic free language from being at the mercy of the tone of voice. Grammar protects us against misunderstanding the sound of an uttered name; logic protects us against what we say have double meaning.

Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.

Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.

Words are the leaves of the tree of language, of which, if some fall away, a new succession takes their place.

Knowledge, like religion, must be "experienced" in order to be known.