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.

Selfishness, when it is punished by the world, is mostly punished because it is connected with egotism.

There is an honesty which is but decided selfishness in disguise. The person who will not refrain from expressing his or her sentiments and manifesting his or her feelings, however unfit the time, however inappropriate the place, however painful this expression may be, lays claim, forsooth, to our approbation as an honest person, and sneers at those of finer sensibilities as hypocrites.

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

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.

There is one statesman of the present day, of whom I always say that he would have escaped making the blunders that he has made if he had only ridden more in buses.

Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether.