Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

The ruin of most men dates from some idle moment.

One might feel indignant at the injustice which deals out what is called fame with so unequal a hand, were it not for the reflection that men who are competent to add to the intellectual wealth of the world, and enlarge the domain of knowledge, have learned to take popular applause at its true value, and to find in the faithful discharge of honorable duty a satisfaction which is its own reward.

There are pictures by Titian so steeped in golden splendors, that they look as if they would light up a dark room like a solar lamp.

A sluggish, dawdling, and dilatory man may have spasms of activity, but he never acts continuously and consecutively with energetic quickness.

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power.

If liberty with law is fire on the hearth, liberty without law is fire on the floor.