If aught be worse than failure from overstress of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success.

And, of all the things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the best.

Men are valued, not for what they are, but for what they seem to be.

Only by the candle, held in the skeleton hand of Poverty, can man read his own dark heart.

What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker! They are more easily excited, they are more violent and apparent; but they have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power than in maturer life.

Men who make money rarely saunter; men who save money rarely swagger.

Love is a very contradiction of all the elements of our ordinary nature -- it makes the proud man meek -- the cheerful, sad -- the high-spirited, tame; our strongest resolutions, our hardiest energy fail before it. Believe me, you cannot prophesy of its future effect in a man from any knowledge of his past character.