If the prodigal quits life in debt to others, the miser quits it still deeper in debt to himself.

The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

Heaven may have happiness as utterly unknown to us as the gift of perfect vision would be to a man born blind. If we consider the inlets of pleasure from five senses only, we may be sure that the same Being who created us could have given us five hundred, if He had pleased.

Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods.

Most importantly: Don't adjust your results to build up the ego of the chief strategist. Especially if the strategist is you.

When young, we trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute.