We generally get the evil we expect.

To forgive freely, is what we owe to our enemy; to forget not, is what we owe to ourselves.

... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.

Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.

A poverty that is universal may be cheerfully borne; it is an individual poverty that is painful and humiliating.

youth is always sure that change must mean something better.

politicians ... turn patriotism into shopkeeping and their own interest - men who care far more for who governs us than for how we are governed.. And what will be the end of such ways? I will tell you. We shall have a Democracy that will be the reign of those who know the least and talk the loudest.