The best education is to be had at a price, as well as the best broadcloth.

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.

Nothing surely is as potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small dainty task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

There are some points on which no man can be contented to follow the advice of another - some subjects on which a man can consult his own conscience only.

Little bits of things make me do it; — perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago; — the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

To feel that your hours are filled to overflowing, that you can barely steal minutes enough for sleep, that the welfare of many is entrusted to you, that the world looks on and approves, that some good is always being done to others -- above all things some good to your country; -- that is happiness.