Memory itself is an internal rumour; and when to this hearsay within the mind we add the falsified echoes that reach us from others, we have but a shifting and unseizable basis to build upon. The picture we frame of the past changes continually and grows every day less similar to the original experience which it purports to describe.

The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.

For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.

Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it.

Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.

You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.