The man who could withstand, with his fellow-men in single line, a charge of cavalry may lose all command of himself on the occurrence of a fire in his own house, because of some homely reminiscence unknown to the observing bystander.

What a blessing this smoking is! Perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America.

The most common-place people become highly imaginative when they are in a passion. Whole dramas of insult, injury, and wrong pass before their minds,--efforts of creative genius, for there is sometimes not a fact to go upon.

The thing which makes one man greater than another, the quality by which we ought to measure greatness, is a man's capacity for loving.

Be cheerful [and grateful for the good that you have]: do not brood over fond hopes unrealized until a chain is fastened on each thought and wound around the heart. Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy.

The world will tolerate many vices, but not their diminutives.

It is in length of patience, endurance and forbearance that so much of what is good in mankind and womankind is shown.