It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not.

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

How strange it is that we of the present day are constantly praising that past age which our fathers abused, and as constantly abusing that present age, which our children will praise.

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectively deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

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

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.

In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.