Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.

The experience of every past moment but belies the faith of each present.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skillful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?

The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon.

Perfect alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end, and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value which gold merely represents; and there is no Signor Blitz about it.