In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward.

Whenever you find humour, you find pathos close by its side.

As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable. Armies cannot protect it then; and walls which have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt.

A large portion of human beings live not so much in themselves as in what they desire to be. They create what is called an ideal character, in an ideal form, whose perfections compensate in some degree for the imperfections of their own.

The greatness of action includes immoral as well as moral greatness--Cortes and Napoleon, as well as Luther and Washington.

Wit is an unexpected explosion of thought.

What a man does with his wealth depends upon his idea of happiness. Those who draw prizes in life are apt to spend tastelessly, if not viciously; not knowing that it requires as much talent to spend as to make.