Fate laughs at probabilities.

There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts. History reveals men's deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed.

One of the sublimest things in the world is plain truth.

The fewer blows, the better. Brave men fight if they must; wise men never fight if they can help it.

He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite.

The worst part of an eminent man's conversation is, nine times out of ten, to be found in that part by which he means to be clever.

It is noticeable how intuitively in age we go back with strange fondness to all that is fresh in the earliest dawn of youth. If we never cared for little children before, we delight to see them roll in the grass over which we hobble on crutches. The grandsire turns wearily from his middle-aged, careworn son, to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees; it is the old who are most saddened by the autumn; and feel most delight in the returning spring.