n._

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head
than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall
with equal velocity in a vacuum.--_Colton._

An ill argument introduced with deference will procure more credit than
the profoundest science with a rough, insolent, and noisy
management.--_Locke._

One may say, generally, that no deeply rooted tendency was ever
extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on
argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.--_G. H. Lewes._

A reason is often good, not because it is conclusive, but because it is
dramatic,--because it has the stamp of him who urges it, and is drawn
from his own resources. For there are arguments _ex homine_ as well as
_ad hominem_.--_Joubert._

If I were to deliver up my whole self to the arbitrament of special
pleaders, to-day I might be argued into an atheist, and to-morrow into a
pickpocket.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Aristocracy.~--And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.--_De
Foe._

What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it
runs back to a successful soldier?--_Walter Scott._

If in an aristocracy the people be virtuous, they will enjoy very nearly
the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state will become
powerful.--_Montesquieu._

An aristocracy is the true, the only support of a monarchy. Without it
the State is a vessel without a rudder--a balloon in the air. A true
aristocracy, however, must be ancient. Therein consists its real
force,--its talismanic charm.--_Napoleon._

I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world,
ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled
to be ridden.--_Richard Rumbold._

~Armor.~--The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.--_Lord Bacon._

Our armor all is strong, our cause the best; then reason wills our
hearts should be as good.--_Shakespeare._

~Art.~--Rules may teach us not to raise the arms above the head; but if
passion carries them, it will be well done: passion knows more than
art.--_Baron._

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art and
industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for
beauty or value. Art is only the underworkman, and is employed to give a
few strokes of embellishment to those pieces which come from the hand of
the master.--_Hume._

The mission of art is to represent nature;