Winged time glides on insensibly, and deceives us; and there is nothing more fleeting than years. [ Ovid ]

Praise is the symbol which represents sympathy, and which the mind insensibly substitutes for its recollection and language. [ Mackintosh ]

We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence. [ Bovee ]

There is a gentle, but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of. [ Sir John Herschel ]

Peacefully and reasonably to contemplate is at no time hurtful, and while we use ourselves to think of the advantages of others, our own mind comes insensibly to imitate them; and every false activity to which our fancy was alluring us is then willingly abandoned. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Bright and illustrious illusions! Who can blame, who laugh at the boy, who not admire and commend him, for that desire of a fame outlasting the Pyramids by which he insensibly learns to live in a life beyond the present, and nourish dreams of a good unattainable by the senses? [ Bulwer-Lytton ]