Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power.

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

The shadow of human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope.

Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which is the essential thing.

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

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 statesman makes the occasion, but the occasion makes the politician.