The object of ambition, unlike that of love, never being wholly possessed, ambition is the more durable passion of the two.

Reading without purpose is sauntering not exercise.

The faults of a brilliant writer are never dangerous on the long run; a thousand people read his work who would read no other; inquiry is directed to each of his doctrines; it is soon discovered what is sound and what is false; the sound become maxims, and the false beacons.

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

The more I think of a people calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes of force, and virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes antagonistic in proportion as our civilisation advances - the more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers.

A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.

The frenzy of nations is the statesmanship of fate.