Few things hold the perception more thoroughly captive than anxiety about what we have got to say

There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.

It is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired.

What moments of despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity: and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.

I'm not denyin' the women are foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men.

It is not true that a man's intellectual power is, like the strength of a timber beam, to be measured by its weakest point.

But certain winds will make men's temper bad.