but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings.

Starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags , we now and then arrive just where we ought to be.

Ah! but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.

One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves.

Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead.

Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.

But let the wise be warned against too great readiness to explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.