there was nothing in the whole world so dreadful as the power of riches wrongly used.

Is he well educated?" "Yes, I think so, as far as he's gone," I answered. "Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about 'finishing' your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day.

it takes the very wisest person there is to know when to talk, and when to keep still.

If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose.

It really seems as if failure and hardship make more of a human being of folks than success.

I know men and women. An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a liar; both are born and not made. One cannot change to the other any more than that same old leopard can change its spots. After a man tells a woman the first untruth of that sort, the others come piling thick, fast, and mountain high.

the friend in need is the one who is the friend in deed; ... if people were not friends in need, there was every likelihood that they never would be friends again in any conditions that might obtain.