Emulation, even in brutes, is sensitively "nervous." See the tremor of the thoroughbred racer before he starts. The dray-horse does not tremble, but he does not emulate. It is not his work to run a race. Says Marcus Antoninus, "It is all one to a stone whether it be thrown upward or downward." Yet the emulation of a man of genius is seldom with his contemporaries, that is, inwardly in his mind, although outwardly in his act it would seem so. The competitors with whom his secret ambition seems to vie are the dead.

Fortune is said to be blind, but her favorites never are. Ambition has the eye of the eagle, prudence that of the lynx; the first looks through the air, the last along the ground.

Faith builds in the dungeon and lazarhouse its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro,--prayer.

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

The conscience is the most flexible material in the world. Today you cannot stretch it over a mole hill; while tomorrow it can hide a mountain.

Julius Caesar owed two millions when he risked the experiment of being general in Gaul. If Julius Caesar had not lived to cross the Rubicon, and pay off his debts, what would his creditors have called Julius Caesar?

Men of strong affections are jealous of their own genius. They fear lest they should be loved for a quality, and not for themselves.