Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.

In life, as in whist, hope nothing from the way cards may be dealt to you. Play the cards, whatever they be, to the best of your skill.

It is an error to suppose that courage means courage in everything. Most people are brave only in the dangers to which they accustom themselves, either in imagination or practice.

Fine natures are like fine poems; a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you read on.

Shame is like the weaver's thread; if it breaks in the net, it is wholly imperfect.

A woman too often reasons from her heart; hence two-thirds of her mistakes and her troubles.

In every civilized society there is found a race of men who retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal and live upon their fellow-men as a natural food.