Alas! it is not the child but the boy that generally survives in the man.

Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.

The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct betray his opinion of your character.

Rare almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs; are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in this way, requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an enthusiast who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.

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.

A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.

People resemble still more the time in which they live, than they resemble their fathers.