Whatever your sex or position, life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward. Whether passed on a bed of sickness or a tented field, it is ever the same fair play and admits no foolish distinction. Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.

Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.

To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery.

I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.

Sincerity is a great but rare virtue, and we pardon to it much complaining, and the betrayal of many weaknesses.

You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.