In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

But I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character, that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against small-pox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters, and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman.

Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly