There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; and there is no true beauty without the signatures of these graces in the very countenance.

Wisdom is seldom gained without suffering.

Extremely foolish advice is likely to be uttered by those who are looking at the laboring vessel from the land.

Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.

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.

I do not know any way so sure of making others happy as of being so oneself, to begin with.

A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.