There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.

We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.

A world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes the disruptive force of candor.

Anyone, however, who has had dealings with dates knows that they are worse than elusive, they are perverse. Events do not happen at the right time, nor in their proper sequence. That sense of harmony with place and season which is so strong in the historian--if he be a readable historian--is lamentably lacking in history, which takes no pains to verify his most convincing statements.

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join

to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.

if a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.